Nature and Scope of Functions

The Minister of Education is the Responsible Minister who oversees the Government’s ownership interest in the Ministry. This includes administering education legislation and exercising discretionary powers. In the early childhood education and schooling sectors the Ministry has responsibility for strategic leadership and policy development, as well as a substantial operational role. This includes responsibility for education property, developing national guidelines and curriculum statements, allocating funding, and providing services to students and support to whanau, communities and schools.

The Ministry also manages the non-departmental appropriations in Vote Education. The Ministry’s role in this area is primarily the disbursement of funding to providers of education services (including teachers’ salaries), purchasing of services on behalf of the Crown and monitoring those arrangements, and providing ownership advice in respect of education Crown entities.

The Ministry supports the Minister for Tertiary Education in purchasing tertiary education. The Ministry focuses on leadership and governance, and monitoring and evaluation of the sector. Education Crown entities, primarily the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), have a more direct interface with the tertiary education sector.

The Ministry fulfils its roles through the seven departmental output classes of Vote Education. These categories are pre-existing and are not specifically aligned with the education priority outcomes. A table showing the links between the education priority outcomes and the departmental and non-departmental output classes is provided on the Vote Education Appropriations page.

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Education Sector Information:

Early childhood education

• Around $1.1 billion of Vote Education is spent on early childhood education.
• As at 1 July 2008 there were 198,784 enrolments in early childhood education¹ at 4,649 early childhood education services, with a workforce including 16,861 usual teaching staff at teacher-led services.
• The early childhood education sector includes a range of private and community providers: kindergartens, kōhanga reo, playcentres, centre-based services, home-based services and playgroups.
• On average, each child was enrolled for 18.9 hours a week (this does not include kōhanga reo, The Correspondence School and casual education and care services as hours of attendance are not collected for these centres).

Schooling

• About $5.1 billion of Vote Education is spent on primary and secondary schooling.
• There were 758,094 students attending school at 1 July 2008.
• New Zealand had 2,034 primary schools and 336 secondary schools in 2008.
• There were 50,950 teaching staff at state and state integrated schools as at April 2008.

Tertiary

• Within Vote Education, about $2.4 billion is spent on direct funding to tertiary providers and around $388 million for skills and training programmes.
• In 2007 there were 484,000 students enrolled in formal tertiary education, studying at universities, wānanga, institutes of technology and polytechnics, private training establishments and other providers, and 186,000 in industry training.
• In 2007 there were 12,758 full-time equivalent academic staff employed in public tertiary education providers.

Kaupapa Māori education

The kaupapa Māori education sector is a network of early childhood, schooling and tertiary education providers whose curriculum is based upon Māori and iwi-specific knowledge and world views, and specific values, beliefs and philosophies of teaching and learning. In many cases these providers deliver education through te reo Māori. Approximately 28,500 students participate in kaupapa Māori education.

1. These statistics provide a headcount of enrolments. If a child is enrolled at more than one early childhood education service, he or she will be counted more than once.