Budget 2020 Live Special: The Government will borrow an extra $50 billion in the June 2021 fiscal year to mitigate the hit from the Covid-19 pandemic.
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What's in the Budget for the Tauranga education sector? Journalist Kelly Makiha finds out from local leaders what they like and what they don't like.
The principal of one of Tauranga's biggest secondary schools is fully supportive the Government's funding choices in the Budget, despite education missing out.
"The goalof this Budget has been to get people back to work," Otumoetai College principal Russell Gordon said. "I am not jealous that not an awful lot has gone to education and I fully support the direction of where the money has gone."
Gordon said job creation would filter down to the wellbeing of students and money for key trades academies was positive.
"That gives me genuine hope that students who choose a vocational pathway will see a coherent pathway for them."
He said he would have liked to have seen some kind of certainty for the future of international students, given they were a key revenue stream for many education facilities from primary through to tertiary.
He said because of Covid-19 many of those students had gone home, which would greatly affect funding. At his school alone, international students funded five teachers earning an average of $84,000 each.
"We are happy to take the hit this year but I would hope there would be some money set aside for 2021. The borders might not be opening for tourists but it would be good to find a way to open them for students."
Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology chief executive Leon Fourie. Photo / File
Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology chief executive Leon Fourie said free trades training for critical courses such as building, construction and agriculture was a great start to help retrain those who lose their jobs as a result of the Covid-19 fallout.
He said he would await further information on the $20 million student hardship fund but it is good to see this being implemented.
"We also await to see if there is any other mention of other student support, which would be welcomed.
"What we would like to see as flow-on from the Budget quickly is significantly greater flexibility in relation to policy and funding settings so that providers, such as Toi Ohomai, can deliver more short learning programmes and micro-credentials. This flexibility would enable a skills response plan that would help fast track economic recovery."
He said Toi Ohomai looked forward to reviewing this in depth over the next couple of days as more detail was released.
University of Waikato Vice-Chancellor Professor Neil Quigley said the Budget appeared to have made provision for increased enrolments in the tertiary sector and for more trades and apprenticeship training particularly in the primary sector.
"But the increase in funding rates per student is 1.6 per cent and there are no material schemes to encourage university study. The focus is on pre-degree technical training."
But Quigley said they were pleased with the $20m student hardship fund.
Key education points: • $375.1m operating total includes early childhood education subsidies, school operations grants, trade academies and tertiary education subsidies. • Learning Support ($79.7m operating total): to maintain learning support service delivery, money for English for speakers of other languages teaching staff and for the School High Health Needs Fund, which supports teacher aides. • Extension of school lunch scheme from 8000 pupils to 200,000 pupils by next year.
