Budget 2019: Slashed donations and more support for schools

Slashed school donations, extra funding for school nurses and money for healthy lifestyle promotion has left Rotorua teachers with mixed feelings.

Major announcements for the education sector in today's Budget included a $150 per child per year incentive to all low to mid-decile schools that promise to scrap donations, $19.6m to expand nurses in secondary schools up to decile 5 and a 47.6 million joint initiative to promote healthy eating and physical activity in schools.

Sunset Primary School principal Eden Chapman said the extra $150 per child would massively help the school, with the potential of a support worker on the cards.

Chapman had removed family donations after the Government made campaign promises to fund schools in place of the donations, so the announcement was a "delight".

Rotorua Girls' High School principal Sarah Davis said the removal of donation fees was "absolutely wonderful" to not have to chase families for.

She said money was a point of struggle for some families and the school could focus on other areas with more funding and less chasing.

Rotorua Girls High School principal Sarah Davis. Photo / File

Girls' High had a nurse in their Wellbeing Centre and Davis said the allocation of more nurses was crucial for the overall wellbeing of students.

Davis said these health services needed to be easily accessible to young people and saw the benefits from her school alone.

Kaitao Intermediate School principal Phil Palfrey said he hoped to put the extra funding in place of the donation into either sports equipment or updated devices.

"We want to be digital citizens and we want them to know how to use devices effectively," he said.

Speaking about the joint healthy lifestyle initiative, Palfrey said while teaching healthy lifestyles choices was crucial, he had two main concerns: it was not a lot of money to implement a programme and much of the education needed to be for parents.

Rotorua Lakes High School principal Bruce Walker echoed this, saying he was interested to see how it would be allocated.

"I wouldn't like us to be checking lunchboxes . . . I think a lot of healthiness is parents responsibility," he said.

In the pre-budget announcement, the Government announced $95m would be put towards boosting teacher numbers; about 2400 spots will be opened up for trainees.

The Government also announced it would remove NCEA fees with $49m over four years spent on removing NCEA fees, plus a further $21m to continue rolling out NCEA online.