Analysis: It’s Budget Day. Education sector leaders file into the auditorium at the National Library not long after the Government’s books are released, in response to an unusual invitation from a minister.
Representatives from early childhood, primary, secondary school, te kura and kura kaupapa Māori gather for Education Minister Erica Stanford’s post-Budget speech as she shares with evident pride what $2.1 billion of new spending in the Budget will mean for education, particularly secondary schools.
Given a high-performing education system is, in her words, “a key driver of economic prosperity, higher wages, higher productivity, long-term growth”, Stanford can perhaps be forgiven for mistakenly calling the country “our company” before correcting herself.
“If we want all of these things, we must lift educational achievement. It is both a moral and an economic imperative because education, of course, is that protective cloak that wraps around our young people, that creates opportunity, that encourages aspiration, and that should give every single child the opportunity to reach their full potential.
“That’s why I’m so passionate about the work that we’ve been doing over the last three years,” she tells the crowd.
But on the back of increasing tensions between the sector and the minister as she forges ahead with her unwavering desire for a “knowledge-rich curriculum grounded in the science of learning”, the apparent indifference of her audience is telling.
As one Porirua principal, Lynda Knight-de Blois, tells Newsroom in response to the Budget, “we are disappointed, but not surprised.”
“Given there has been limited input from educators and sector experts into the design of the new senior curriculum and new assessment framework then this is a massive financial risk,” she says. “As we have seen with the previous two years’ spend in the primary school sector, it is likely to be a huge waste of taxpayer money with very little positive impact for children and youth.”
Addressing the sceptical crowd, Stanford recaps the previous two budgets’ focus on “teaching the basics brilliantly” and learning support. The latest edition will continue in that vein, prioritising better assessment, reporting, monitoring, improving teacher training and targeted intervention for students alongside curriculum reform.
Funding expensive but transformative tools was about creating equitable outcomes, she says, thanking teachers for taking on the new curriculums, resources and training. “You have run with them and you are the reason for these results.”
But few hands go up as the floor opens for questions, and it is a good 10 seconds before anyone in the crowd speaks. Despite a rare opportunity to ask questions of the education minister, the crowd is largely silent.
Competing views about early childhood education funding in the crowd are evident, one representative shaking their head as another argues changes intended to ease the sector’s regulatory burden have in fact increased risks for children and the quality of ECE.
Meanwhile, half of the six questions asked by sector representatives focus on Māori education. One asks about the omission of any mention of kura or bilingual schools in Stanford’s presentation, while another wants to know how changes apply to Section 155C schools, a specific type of kura kaupapa Māori.
Slightly more flustered than during her presentation, Stanford says all the changes and resources were available for kura kaupapa Māori in te reo and funding has been ring-fenced in the Budget, with ongoing discussions for the “complex area” of Section 155C schools. She highlights the Māori education package from the last Budget, and all the ways in which the wider education reforms apply to Māori by delivering the same resources in te reo.
When asked how the Budget is going to elevate and enhance the partnership between home and school, Stanford says the answer to that lies with schools.
“I’m here to provide all of the resources that you need to teach well in the classroom, but it is the job of schools to have that incredible relationship with parents and whānau.”
But it is those very human relationships that schools value – and need time for, but fear is being taken away by new curriculums packed to the brim with content.
Asked by journalists about the increase in operating grants not matching inflation nor anywhere near what the sector asked for, Stanford says the Government is funding resources and professional development that schools would otherwise normally have to fund themselves.
Yet Knight-de Blois says that’s not the kind of training the sector is asking for, a view shared by dozens of other principals she’s surveyed on Budget Day.
To wrap up, Ministry of Education secretary Ellen MacGregor-Reid, asks the crowd to join in for a round of applause in thanking the minister for “a significant investment in our education system”.
Returning to a big smile, Stanford says: “We did good.”
