School boards hoping for some budget cheer

Media Release

School boards hoping for some budget cheer

2,500 school boards and close to 18,000 trustees and principals are hoping that the 2007/08 budget will deliver some “cheer” in the form of much needed additional funding.

NZ School Trustees Association president Lorraine Kerr says extra funding is desperately needed to cover increasing pressure on schools’ operational grants.

“Thousands of New Zealanders have recently put themselves forward to govern our schools for the next three years, and whilst they are prepared to give this commitment to the students in their community, that has to be supported by providing sufficient funding to do the job.”

Ms Kerr says that while a review of school operations funding continues this year, NZSTA is hopeful that the government will acknowledge the pressures on funding now by taking the opportunity to provide some immediate interim relief in next week’s budget.

Any changes that might come about from the Operations Grant review will not be in place until 2008 at the earliest. NZSTA has raised this with the Minister of Education Steve Maharey outlining the areas which the Association believes require immediate extra funding. These are:

- Base funding, which has not kept pace with changes in costs

- Relief teacher funding

- Smoothing of student abatement funding

- Funding to support Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

- Recognition of costs associated with additional annual leave for support staff

“If the government steps up and provides this extra funding it would send a clear signal to the sector that they are committed to addressing funding issues and adequately supporting the valuable role that boards of trustees undertake”, says Ms Kerr.

NZSTA has been instrumental in campaigning for a significant increase in board operations grants over the past four years, and is one of a number of groups taking part in the current Operations Grant review.

ENDS

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