Government accelerates $413m school property upgrades with new $58m funding

Education Minister Erica Stanford says every school in New Zealand will benefit from today’s $413 million school infrastructure announcement, which brings forward already planned projects.

“We have a significant pipeline of maintenance work to keep our schools in great shape, but we’re accelerating $413m of projects so they can get under way sooner,” Stanford said.

“This will enable schools to do significant maintenance over the coming summer holidays, and support more rural and isolated schools to upgrade their infrastructure.”

Of the $413m, $58m is new funding for operating maintenance work for all schools.

This package also includes:

• $255m for internal and external improvements on all isolated, small and rural schools, representing half of all state schools. 
• $100m over five years for urgent and essential infrastructure work. 

Of this funding,$100m comes from Budget 2024, $80m comes from the Ministry of Education’s baseline funding and $175m is brought-forward funding.

The new $58m would be a one-off top-up to the current property maintenance grant, Stanford said.

This would support schools’ operating maintenance works such as painting, exterior washdowns, roof and cladding repairs, she said.

It follows a string of school property announcements and the establishment of a new school property agency in July to oversee the planning, building and maintenance of new school buildings.

At the same time, the Government announced more than $120m would be spent building more classrooms across Auckland.

Earlier this month, Stanford announced about $300m would go toward repairing and upgrading 33 schools “facing some of the most challenging property conditions in the country”.

This included new or refurbished classrooms at Dargaville High School, Auckland’s Alfriston College and Wellington’s Onslow College.

And in May, Stanford announced a major $35m upgrade for a Wellington kura after years of making do with dilapidated and inadequate classrooms.

It also comes amid a major shake-up of the country’s main secondary school qualification. Issues with the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) were laid out in a series of damning reports and in August, Stanford announced the scheme would be replaced with a new, structured approach.

Education Minister Erica Stanford during her visit to Brooklyn School in Wellington in August. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Under the new scheme, Year 11 students will face what is being called a “Foundational Skills Award” with a focus on literacy and numeracy. English and mathematics will be required subjects for students at this year level.

Year 12 and 13 students will seek to attain the New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) and the New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education (NZACE) respectively.

At the time, the Herald also revealed two ministerial briefings from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) warned the NCEA faced a credibility crisis over its “overused” flexibility, a lack of coherent vocational education pathways, students gaming the system to accumulate credits, and an over-reliance on internal assessments.

Stanford’s proposal represents the most significant update to secondary school assessments since the NCEA was introduced more than two decades ago.