School cash: ‘Keeping up with inflation games’
But, end of decile funding welcomed
New funding increases for schools and early childcare won’t even keep up with inflation, educators warn following yesterday’s Budget announcement.
Funding rate increases across the system made up over $750 million which would go directly to education providers to help meet rising costs, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said.
That includes a 2.75 per cent increase to funding rates in early learning services and 2.75 per cent increase to schools’ operational grants — equating to an extra $231.8m into early learning and $184.4m going into schools and kura over four years.
But Vaughan Couillault, head of the Secondary Principals’ Association, said most Vote Education spending announced yesterday was “just playing keeping up with inflation games ... if that”.
More funding for school property funding, such as new classrooms, also wouldn’t stretch far despite big headline numbers.
“The Government will say they’ve invested this much — but they have to, there’s more kids in the sector.”
Couillault said the only really big ticket item for education was the $300m to transition from the decile system to a new equity index.
The absence of any extra funding for learning support co-ordinators was also “a big hole” which had been raised with the minister.
NZ Principals’ Federation president Cherie Taylor-Patel said the 2.75 per cent was welcome but did not come close to meeting the rate of inflation.
James Cook High School principal Grant McMillan agreed. “The air is going out of the tyres faster than it’s being pumped back in.”
The Budget includes $266m over four years to help qualified early learning teachers reach pay parity with kindergarten teachers, and an unspecified amount for kōhanga reo to continue improving pay for kaimahi.
It will also include a new minimum rate of pay for early childhood centre managers.
NZEI Te Riu Roa union president Liam Rutherford said that would help retain experienced teachers and bring new people to the sector.
“Early childhood teachers now have a transparent, consistent pay scale based on union collective agreements like their counterparts in primary and kindergarten education,” he says.
But experienced teachers and managers were still on lower rates than their counterparts in kindy and primary and NZEI would keep pushing for full pay parity.
The Office of Early Childhood Education (OECE) lobby group said the cost adjustment to funding rates would be welcome news for overstretched ECEs that were struggling with higher costs. But it wouldn’t be enough for many centres which would have to increase parent fees or cut back on staffing.
The Government’s moving ahead with plans to dump the school decile system, replacing it with an equity index at a cost of $300m from the start of next year. That index is intended to distribute funding according to the needs of each child, rather than the neighbourhood they come from.
Hipkins announced there would be $75m per year in extra equity funding for schools with more socioeconomic need.
That will be on top of the money currently shared out through the decile system, which was $150m in 2019. Some funding has also been included to start making similar changes for the early childcare sector.
Pat Newman, head of the Tai Tokerau Principals’ Association, said the index would be “a hell of a lot fairer”.
The principal of Hora Hora School in Whangārei said the whole Northland school community would be better off under the index, even though most are already lower decile. “I wish they’d hurry up — the faster they bring in the equity funding, the better.”
The old system was based on what proportion of a school’s students came from socioeconomically deprived neighbourhoods. It’s a relatively blunt tool compared to the equity index, which will calculate funding based on the level of disadvantage for each child.
West Auckland mum Sapphire Niuloa was “pretty stoked” to get one thing from her education wishlist — dumping the decile system.
Her daughter Selepa Opetaia Niuloa, 7, attends Rānui School. It’s decile 2, which means it has a lot of students who come from a lower socioeconomic neighbourhood. It has nothing to do with the quality of the school — Niuloa says it’s a great school. But she’s seen how locals will drive an hour to a more prestigious school, which she thinks is to do with the school’s decile label.
The Government will say they’ve invested this much — but they have to, there’s more kids in the sector.
Vaughan Couillault, head of the Secondary Principals’ Association