Budget 2015: Education Is Set To Improve With Additional $687 million Allocation

                             

With an additional $687 million invested in learning, special education as well as Early Childhood Education has received a significant rise in funding. It has also been revealed by New Zealand Budget 2015 that the boost offered by David Seymour, Act Party leader, for more partnership or charter schools has proved successful as 2 new schools are set to open.

Education Budget 2015 :

Novopay, the challenging school pay-roll system, is set to be allocated millions of dollars in funding. The new Budget has allotted an extra $63 million to help and support young learners with special needs over the coming 4 years. This will keep continuing to support in-class teacher aide for more than 1500 children with special needs. The programme had started back in February.

The funding will also help to advance the ORS (Ongoing Resource Scheme) to an additional 500 students and will fund specialists like occupational therapists and speech-language therapists. Hekia Parata, Minister of Education in New Zealand, said “In the case of students with special needs, a strong education increases the chance of them becoming more independent and better able to participate in and contribute to the community.”

Almost $53.3 million in extra spending in 4 four years is being invested on the Novopay, the school pay-roll system. The federal government was compelled to take charge and management of the pay-roll system from Talent2, an Australian company. Peter Hughes, Secretary of Education, predicted that making the system better resulted in spending an extra $45 million till now. Parata claimed that the additional funding for Novopay aimed to “complete the process of delivering an efficient and cost effective payroll system,” and to continually improve payroll performance.

New & Early Childhood Schools :

A $75 million rise has been assigned to early childhood education for the coming 4 years and it would encourage more learners to attend for increasing hours from an early age, said Parata. The federal government is striving to achieve an objective to encourage more than 98 per cent of all young kids who will start school in the next year and have already taken part in recognized early childhood education. Furthermore, operational grants of schools will also boost by 1 per cent at $42.3 million.

The 2015 Budget also incorporates new capital expenses of around $244 million to construct 7 new schools and Kura Kaupapa, expand 4 existing schools and construct additional 241 classrooms at current schools. The new education investment of $687 million is partially provided by savings of $65 million in the Ministry of Education.

Tertiary Education :

Moreover, in accordance with the child hardship Budget initiative of the government, the student allowance rate for post-secondary students with children will boost by $25 per week. It is expected that this will benefit around 9000 families. For families with low-income, childcare assistance will rise from $4 per hour to $5 per hour, which will impact around 40,000 families.

             

What do you think about the 2015 Budget and how will it affect education? Feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and views with us by commenting below. We would love to hear from you.

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