Budget 2008 Education Initiatives

Announced by the government on 22 May, Budget 2008 provides funding for a range of education initiatives.

Summary Table of Budget 2008 Education (ECE and Schooling) Initiatives

Early Childhood Education

Initiative

Description

Early Childhood Education (ECE) Annual Cost Adjustment
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $14.164m
  • 2009/10 $15.811m
  • 2010/11 $16.597m
  • 2011/12 $16.994m

 

Four Year Total $63.566m

This initiative increases the ECE funding subsidy, Free ECE and equity funding rates to reflect services' cost increases; increases the provisionally registered teachers support grant to reflect salary increases; and includes funding for limited attendance centres.

 

 

Schooling

Initiative

Description

2009 School Staffing Improvements for New Entrants
 

Operating funding excluding capital charge

  • 2008/09 $21.965m
  • 2009/10 $52.663m
  • 2010/11 $53.608m
  • 2011/12 $53.796m

 

Four Year Total $182.032
 

Capital funding

  • 2008/09 $2.335m
  • 2009/10 $7.702m
  • 2010/11 $16.681m
  • 2011/12 $6.791m

 

Four Year Total $33.509m

 

This initiative invests in school staffing to support new entrant learning.  It provides an estimated extra 762 teachers (full-time teacher equivalents – FTTEs) from 2009, and is over and above any extra teachers required to meet roll growth.  The funding is for extra teachers, school learning spaces, furniture and equipment and laptops for teachers.  It also adds more assessment tools to the electronic Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning (e-asTTle) library.
 

This initiative aims to ensure all new entrants get well-settled into school and gain strong foundations in their early learning, particularly in literacy and numeracy.  Improved access to assessment information will also assist teachers to plan appropriate learning programmes.
 

 

Annual Adjustment to Schools’ Operational Funding
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $24.514m
  • 2009/10 $49.132m
  • 2010/11 $48.928m
  • 2011/12 $49.006m

 

Four Year Total $171.580m

 

This initiative provides for a 5% increase to schools’ operational funding effective from 1 January 2009, and includes a component to assist schools with the costs of Information and Communications Technology (ICT).  The increase is well above the projected Consumer Price Index shift of approximately 3.1% in 2008.
 

The government’s total investment in schools’ operational funding is $4.7 billion over the next four years.

Laptops for Teachers
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $2.250m
  • 2009/10 -
  • 2010/11 -
  • 2011/12 -

 

Four Year Total $2.250m

 

 

The government is committed to increasing the use of ICT in schools to help improve student achievement and teaching practice.
 

Additional funding for the Laptops for Teachers scheme allows for further expansion to an already successful scheme.
 

Research has shown that having a laptop has led to teachers having more flexibility in their time and place of work, increased confidence and competence in ICT use, and increased efficiency in lesson preparations.

 

Non-Enrolled Truancy Service Capacity Increase
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $3.340m
  • 2009/10 -
  • 2010/11 -
  • 2011/12 -

 

Four Year Total $3.340m

 

 

The implementation of ENROL, the national enrolment register, has helped the Ministry of Education more clearly identify those students who have not been enrolled at school for 20 days or more.
 

This funding increases the capacity of the Non-Enrolled Truancy Service (NETS) to find non-enrolled students and support them to return to school.  It provides extra support while ENROL beds down and the number of non-enrolled students stabilises.
 

This initiative will help students and their families to access social services, such as mental health services and agencies such as Child, Youth and Family, who will work to return a student to school.

 

Literacy and Numeracy in Secondary Schools
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $2.068m
  • 2009/10 $4.462m
  • 2010/11 $3.150m
  • 2011/12 $0.756m

 

Four Year Total $10.436m

 

This initiative will fund delivery of Literacy and Numeracy professional development programmes to a further 30 secondary schools, with a focus on teachers of students in Years Nine and Ten.

 

Full-time Moderators for the National Certificate of Educational Achievement
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $2.720m
  • 2009/10 -
  • 2010/11 -
  • 2011/12 -

 

Four Year Total $2.720m

 

 

Budget 2008 provides funding for full-time moderators hired by NZQA to moderate internal assessments of NCEA.  Increased moderation will improve the credibility and quality of internal assessment for the NCEA.
 

The amount of internally assessed student work moderated will increase to 10% from 2008.  Previously 81,740 samples (3% of internally assessed standards gaining credit) were moderated.  Now up to 240,000 samples will be moderated each year.
 

NCEA standards can be either internally assessed by schools, or externally assessed through national examinations.  All unit standards and around half of achievement standards are internally assessed, with the other half of achievement standards being externally assessed.

 

 

Property

Initiative

Description

School Property Business Case 2008/09
 

Operating funding excluding capital charge

  • 2008/09 $5.517m
  • 2009/10 $5.444m
  • 2010/11 $4.765m
  • 2011/12 $5.094m

 

Four Year Total $20.820m
 

Capital funding

  • 2008/09 $71.000m
  • 2009/10 $2.790m
  • 2010/11 $0.940m
  • 2011/12 -

 

Four Year Total $74.730m

 

The additional funding allows for completing the construction of nine new schools announced in 2007/08, construction to start on two new schools, 130 new classrooms (plus five gyms) and modernising existing school property, and an increase in the capacity of the school network (from a property perspective) to accommodate extra students from net migration and population growth areas.
 

The focus for 2008/09 is on completing property work already approved.  Significant investment (over $2.5 billion) over the past seven years has created an opportunity for schools to prioritise and plan work on school buildings.  The government now wants to ensure this work is completed.
 

The state (non-integrated) school sector property portfolio has a capital value of $9.7 billion at 30 June 2007, including $6.3 billion worth of improvements.  The total replacement value of the portfolio is approximately $12.5 billion.

 

 

Initiative

Description

Funding for Property at Integrated Schools
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $13.064m
  • 2009/10 -
  • 2010/11 -
  • 2011/12 -

 

Four Year Total $13.064m

 

 

The government recognises that in some areas a new integrated school may provide school spaces which would otherwise have required the building of a state school, and that this accommodation provides offsetting savings to the Crown.
 

Under agreed policies, the proprietor of state- integrated Aquinas College in Tauranga, the Bishop of the Diocese of Hamilton, will receive 85% of the costs of building a state school of the equivalent size in 2008/09.
 

The funding is a one-off allocation for building costs only.  Ongoing costs associated with property fall under integrated schools’ agreements with government.

 

 

Special Education

Initiative

Description

Education Services to Support a Newborn Hearing Screening Programme
 

Operating funding excluding capital charge

  • 2008/09 $1.154m
  • 2009/10 $1.787m
  • 2010/11 $2.094m
  • 2011/12 $2.258m

 

Four Year Total $7.293m
 

Capital funding

  • 2008/09 $0.263m
  • 2009/10 $0.198m
  • 2010/11 $0.110m
  • 2011/12 $0.088m

 

Four Year Total $0.659m

 

 

The government has begun implementing a universal newborn hearing screening programme which will be fully rolled out across the country’s District Health Boards (DHBs) by June 2010. 
 

Three DHBs (Waikato, Hawkes Bay and Tairawhiti) are already in the programme.  Nine other DHBs will progressively join from July 1, 2008.  The remaining nine will come into the screening programme from 1 July 2009.
 

Once children have been identified by the screening as having serious hearing impairments, services are needed from the Ministry of Education’s Special Education services and other special education services.  This initiative will provide specialist advice, help with speech and language (including New Zealand Sign Language), technical assistance with hearing equipment and curriculum adaptation.
 

These services ensure that the children make similar progress in developing the foundations of early literacy and numeracy as their hearing peers. 

 

Extra Therapy Support for Some High Needs Students
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $1.243m
  • 2009/10 $1.243m
  • 2010/11 -
  • 2011/12 -

 

Four Year Total $2.486m

 

 

Government is putting in place funding for the 2009 school year to maintain levels of learning support for students with physical disabilities by ensuring current staffing levels continue.  The existing level of therapy support in the relevant schools will not be reduced.

 

Increasing Staffing in the Vision Education Sector
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $1.181m
  • 2009/10 $1.648m
  • 2010/11 $1.648m
  • 2011/12 $1.648m

 

Four Year Total $6.125m

 

This initiative provides funding for an extra 15 specialist staff to support blind and vision impaired students at schools, increasing the pool of specialist staff to 50.

 

Cost Increases for Non-GSE Providers
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $3.148m
  • 2009/10 $3.682m
  • 2010/11 $3.682m
  • 2011/12 $3.682m

 

Four Year Total $14.194m

 

This initiative provides an inflation adjustment for non-Ministry of Education special education providers supporting students through the Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Schemes.
 

Government recognises the increased costs faced by special education providers and is ensuring that current levels of services are maintained for students supported by those providers.

 

Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Schemes Baseline Adjustment
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $5.329m
  • 2009/10 $4.743m
  • 2010/11 $4.157m
  • 2011/12 $4.157m

 

Four Year Total $18.386m

 

This initiative, which is demand-driven, increases the number of students provided for by the Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Schemes (ORRS) from 6,700 students in 2007/08 to 6,950 students in 2008/09.
 

The extra funding ensures that all children who meet the criteria for ORRS can be supported.

 

School High Health Needs Fund Baseline Update
 

Operating funding

  • 2008/09 $2.671m
  • 2009/10 -
  • 2010/11 -
  • 2011/12 -

 

Four Year Total $2.671m

 

An extra 250 children will be able to access support from the School High Health Needs Fund.
 

The Fund provides teacher aide support for students with high health needs to ensure students are able to fully participate in education.

 

 

 



Content last updated: 10 March 2010