From the house: Hawke's Bay schools getting new classrooms

The biggest population pressure points on schools in Hawke's Bay are in Havelock North and surrounding areas. Photo / File

Lots of people know what it's like to oversee renovations on their house or to even start from scratch with a new build.

It is fun and ultimately very rewarding, but it is also challenging. Not many people would have been involved in building new classrooms or planning expansions to schools.

That is what is on our plate right now in Hawke's Bay.

I was pleased to be part of the Cabinet discussions about how to cater for the big population pressures facing our schools, especially across the Hawke's Bay and Gisborne areas.

To be blunt, the previous government did not put aside enough funds to plan for growth in student numbers, just as they didn't plan for the pressure on our housing stock or hospitals from a growing population.

This week we announced a big investment that will see 23 new classrooms or learning spaces built across the Hawke's Bay and Tairawhiti region.

While I represent the Napier electorate, I know the wider Bay is closely inter-connected and it is important to keep the big picture in mind when it comes to education.

Families who live in one area send their kids to school in another, teachers commute to work, contractors and businesses supply goods and services to a number of our schools, not to mention the value the wider community gets from school sports and cultural facilities.

We are spending $15 million on this project. The biggest winner is that part of the education system which has often been the poor cousin in the past.

I am really proud that Kowhai Special School is to get four new classrooms or learning spaces. Kowhai has such an important role, offering care, support, education and nurture to special needs children and young adults aged between 5 and 21 years.

It might also surprise people to learn that 20 per cent of students in the Havelock North catchment are Maori yet only 3 per cent of students have access to subjects in te reo Maori.

We can do better than this. There's a great kura in Wairoa, Te Kura Kaupapa o Ngāti Kahungunu, and its philosophy of immersion education has seen strong growth. It will get two new classrooms under this project.

So, in total, the schools with the most pressing need for new classrooms in the short term are: Kowhai Special School, Mahora School, Mayfair School, Maraekakaho School, Clive School and Te Kura Kaupapa o Ngāti Kahungunu o Te Wairoa.

Stuart Nash is the MP for Napier and the Minister of Police. Photo / File

The biggest population pressure points on schools in Hawke's Bay are in Havelock North and surrounding areas. We also need to keep an eye on Clive and Wairoa.

The Wellbeing Budget in May allocated a whopping $1.2 billion in capital spending to provide for 24,000 student places. It was the largest ever single investment in school property by any government in our history.

We needed to invest on this scale because we are planning for 100,000 additional students in the years to 2030.

Some regions are growing faster than others. Auckland, of course, is growing at a super-fast rate, hardly a surprise with a population base of around 1.7 million.

We're only about a tenth of that size in Hawke's Bay. But combined with Gisborne–Tairawhiti, we have population pressures of our own.

We are looking ahead beyond the usual cycles, planning for years into the future. There is a lot to fix after years of neglect of the school system. While we cannot solve it straight away we are making a solid start.

We want to ensure that all students can attend a reasonably convenient school and all schools in the area are used effectively to support the wellbeing of children and local communities.

We want New Zealand to be the best place to be a child and that means learning in warm, comfortable and modern classrooms.

• Stuart Nash is the MP for Napier and the Minister of Police