We’ll be regularly updating this information, so keep checking back.
It’s important to remember that we are still in the very early stages of the Review and no decisions have been made. It’s a very big piece of work that will require a lot of ongoing discussion and work.
Background
In 2015, the Ministry undertook a range of exploratory work to understand the strengths and weaknesses of current education funding systems for 0-18 years and to identify opportunities for improvement. Here you can find more information on this .
The focus of the Review
In 2015, we undertook exploratory work to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the education funding systems and to identify opportunities for improvement.
Since then we’ve been focused on exploring high-level ideas to help shift the funding systems to:
- better direct funding to the size of the education challenge that ECE services, schools and Communities of Learning face, rather than the size of their rolls and the cost of their inputs
- a focus on growing the learning and achievement of all children and young people, particularly those most at risk.
In practical terms, we want a funding system that is focused on learning outcomes and educational success for every young New Zealander by:
- targeting the right resource to the right child at the right time
- incentivising and prioritising governance and leadership attention to these.
Working with the education sector
The ideas we have for possible directions for changes are just a starting point for discussion. We’re working with the education sector to test our ideas and identify the best changes to the funding system for achieving our objectives. This engagement is happening from May to August 2016.
We’ve established an Advisory Group who will work with us to test these proposals from a whole of system perspective. Go to the Advisory Group page for more information.
Alongside the Advisory Group, we’re also talking to the wider education sector about the possible directions for changes.
You can find an update on our engagement process and progress here .
Proposed directions for change
There are 3three key components that lie at the heart of the proposed directions for change we will be talking to the sector about. These are:
- a standard per child funding amount tailored to the learning expectations of children and young people at each stage of their education journey, rather than based on their age and year level
- an additional funding amount for children and young people most at risk of educational under-achievement to replace the current decile-based system for both early childhood education services and schooling.
- supplementary funding to support a network of smaller and isolated early childhood education services and schools.
We also want to discuss a set of proposed supporting funding system components, including:
- establishing a global budget for delivering teaching and learning in all schools. This has the potential to increase flexibility in schools’ use of funding while simplifying funding arrangements.
- Separating funding for property-related costs to provide opportunities for more efficient management of school property, while also helping school leaders to focus on teaching and learning, rather than property.
- Developing clear expectations and greater accountability for the educational progress of all children and young people.
- Directly linking the private school subsidy to the marginal cost of educating children and young people in the state schooling sector to provide greater certainty for families and private schools about future funding levels.
We’ll be publishing more information about the proposals once they have been considered by the Advisory Group.
Engagement and next steps
We held 90 engagement meetings with the education sector from June to early September. A summary of the discussions that were held,these discussions, along with a report from the Review of Funding Systems Advisory Group, haswill now beenbe provided to the Minister, and will be used to inform the paper that goes to Cabinet. Cabinet will decide on the proposals to go forward and what the next steps are. Its decision is due before the end of the year.
Go to the engagement reports and discussion papers . These include the background papers that were provided to the Advisory Group summarising each proposal.
We will be regularly updating this page with news about the review.
If you have a general enquiry, email enquiries.national@education.govt.nz , or get in touch with your local Ministry of Education office .
More information
Although this round of engagement has been completed, you can still email: funding.review@education.govt.nz if you have any questions about the Review of Education Funding Systems for ECE services and schooling.
Download National Cross-Sector Forum presentations:
Review of Funding Systems: First stage update (20 November 2015)Review of Funding Systems: The next stage of the Review (26 May 2016).
Read the Stock take of funding system for school-age education in New Zealand . The equivalent ECE report and other background information relating to the Review of Funding Systems can be found on the background information page.