NZSTA continues to fight for adequate funding

Media Release

NZSTA continues to fight for adequate funding for schools

The New Zealand School Trustees Association says the Government’s announcement of extra funding for isolated schools is not addressing the real issue of schools being under-funded.

NZSTA President, Chris Haines says while any new funding is welcome, it is simply making up for previous funding shortages for these schools. Many of New Zealand’s 2,500 schools continue to face major shortfalls in operations grant funding.

“Adequate funding is and should be the Government’s responsibility. The dependence on local funds to balance the books is not likely to change with any of the recent targeted funding announcements from the Government.

“If anything, the current targeted funding approach by the Government will exacerbate the problem by temporarily disguising the need for increased operational grant funding for some schools. The reality is, the chronic funding shortages will remain, until such time as the under-funding issue is addressed across all schools.

“The Government has not yet admitted that operations grant funding is inadequate, despite independent research and fact-based evidence from hundreds of schools.”

Chris Haines says parents are having to dig deeper each year to support their children’s schools – and community money is increasingly being diverted to fund base programmes.

“Boards of trustees will continue to fight for fair and adequate funding levels to ensure the needs of every child is met. Until then, schools will make their opposition known through the NZSTA campaign to increase operations grant funding.”

NZSTA has been co-ordinating a campaign to raise awareness of the difficulties boards of trustees face in running schools on the current levels of Government funding. Boards are increasingly reliant on an estimated $480 million each year from locally-raised funds to maintain current educational programmes

For more information see the NZSTA website www.nzsta.org.nz.

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