Education Budget 2018 Highlights

Vote Education

Budget 2018 provides additional operating investment of $1.6 billion and capital investment of $394.9 million over 4 years for Vote Education, which includes:

  • $483.1 million over the next 4 years to meet growing demand for early childhood education.
  • $306.9 million over the next 4 years to meet growing demand for primary education and $170.7 million over the next 4 years to meet growing demand for secondary education.
  • $283.8 million over the next 4 years to meet growth and fund investment in a range of supports and services for students with additional learning needs. These include investment in: Early Intervention Services, the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme, Te Kahu Tōī Intensive Wraparound Service, Sensory Schools, and Teacher Aide funding.
  • a $74.6 million boost for schools’ operational grants over the next 4 years to fund a 1.6% universal increase. This exceeds the rate of inflation in the previous year, and will help them manage the impact of the cost pressures that they face.
  • a $104.8 million increase in early childhood education subsidy rates (other than for home-based services) over the next 4 years to fund a 1.6% increase, to maintain quality and affordability.
  • a $457.2 million investment in school property for new schools, expansion of existing schools, new classrooms and for the Christchurch Schools Rebuild. This consists of $394.4 million of capital funding and $62.8 million of operating funding.
  • This investment brings the amount of funding in Vote Education up from $11.85 billion in 2017-2018 to $12.26 billion in the 2018-2019 fiscal year.

Vote Tertiary Education

Budget 2018 provides additional operating investment of $1.71 billion over the next 4 years for Vote Tertiary Education, which includes:

  • $1.57 billion over the next 4 years, to pay the first year fees of eligible students.2
  • This investment increases the amount of funding in Vote Tertiary Education in 2018-2019 to $3.44 billion — up from the $3.08 billion budgeted for 2018-2019 in Budget 2017.
  • Alongside the investment in Vote Tertiary Education, the Coalition Government has also delivered $50 increases to weekly student allowance and student loan living cost payments from 1 January 2018 through Votes Social Development, Revenue and Social Housing. This involves forecast operating expenditure of $716 million over the next 4 years, as at December 2017.

Reprioritised funding

As part of Budget 2018, $220.8 million of funding was reprioritised to help address cost pressures and fund other high priorities in Budget 2018:3

  • $83.8 million of funding was reprioritised from Vote Education.
  • $137.0 million of funding was reprioritised from Vote Tertiary Education.

1 $2.0 billion over 5 years from 2017-2018.
2 This is part of the total of $2.57 billion that was set aside in December 2017 to deliver the Coalition Government’s 100-Day commitments to make tertiary education more affordable.
3 Includes reprioritisation from the 2017-2018 financial year.

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