Election 2020: National wants to spend $ 2 billion on education if elected

The National Party is focusing its educational policy on children with learning needs and promises to invest nearly $ 2 billion in education if elected.

He says it would be the largest investment in school repair, reconstruction and remodeling in a generation.

National leader Judith Collins and education spokeswoman Nicola Willis unveiled the policy at a private school in Christchurch this afternoon.

“National will make the largest investment in repairing, rebuilding and remodeling our schools in a generation to ensure that every child has the opportunity to learn in an educational environment fit for purpose,” they said.

But again it would eliminate the higher subsidies for preschools with 100 percent qualified teachers, which has been a policy that has changed for the past 15 years depending on the color of the government.

And it would reverse the government’s decision to map school zones regionally and return responsibility to schools.

Additionally, all elementary and middle schools would have to offer at least one second language, eliminate school zones for the families of a child with learning needs, and build 25 new charter schools in three years.

It would also reduce the universality of feeding in schools to make it “more selective”.

Policy highlights include:

• Improve the adult-to-child ratio of children under 2 years of age in Early Childhood Education (ECE).

• Have more spot checks on ECE services and have more information available to parents on the quality of services.

• Invest an additional $ 4.8 billion in school infrastructure, including $ 2 billion over five years for the Fix New Zealand School Alliance and another $ 2.8 billion over a decade for new classrooms and schools.

• Progressively reduce class sizes to reduce teacher workload.

• Aim to establish 25 new partner schools by 2023

• Eliminate the annual Teaching Council registration fee of $ 157 for teachers.

Children with learning needs

A big focus of the policy is to improve the education of children with additional needs and National said it would do this through earlier intervention and investing $ 683 million over four years for more teacher aides and a learning support funding push for each school.

According to the Ministry of Education, approximately one in five Kiwi children need some kind of additional support for their learning, which could be due to a disability, learning difficulties, handicaps, physical or mental health problems or behavior.

Willis said the current learning support system was a “complex web of form-filling, hopping and uncertainty.”

This meant that many children went undiagnosed and those with mild to moderate needs often missed out on the extra support they need to be successful, he said.

“This unmet need is a drag on New Zealand’s educational achievement rate and comes at a heavy price for families, teachers and other students whose learning may be disrupted.”

National said it would address this with an eight-step plan:

1 – Earliest identification of needs

National would advance the B4 School Check by one year to do it at 3 years.

This would be administered by medical professionals on-site at ECE centers to identify any developmental problems, detect trauma, brain injury, and fetal alcohol syndrome.

The check would be recorded in a children’s passport, a new version of the existing Well Child Tamariki Ora book.

2 – Individualized learning plans

Children who need additional support will get individualized learning plans whose schools should update this at least once a year and report it to parents.

These plans would follow the children as they changed schools.

3 – Spend $ 480 million over four years to boost learning support

Nearly half of $ 1 billion would be spent to boost learning support and then, once fully implemented, it would be worth $ 160 million a year.

Schools can decide for themselves how they spend funds, including sensory assistants, educational psychologists, or student counseling. Schools would have to report annually on how their funding is being used and the results that are being achieved.

A needs-based formula would be developed to distribute funding to schools, but until then it would be allocated through the decile system with deciles 1 and 2 getting $ 400 per student, deciles 3 and 4 getting $ 300, deciles 5 and 6 obtaining $ 200 and deciles from 7 to 10 obtaining $ 100 per student.

National would continue to fund the 623 Learning Support Coordinators that are being implemented as part of the Government’s plan to help more children with learning needs.

“We will work with schools to evaluate the effectiveness of the current scheme before implementing the second tranche of learning support coordinators.”

4 – More teacher assistants in the classrooms

National said it would nearly double the 18,000 teacher aides in New Zealand by investing $ 150 million over four years to fund an additional six million hours of classroom support.

That works out to about 1,500 new teacher aides at 25 hours per week, or an average of 600 hours per school each year.

5 – Improve mental health training for teachers

National said it would strengthen the training in mental health skills so they could pass them on to their students, but did not include details on how this would happen.

It would also require the Office of Education Review to explicitly assess how schools are performing in delivering mental health skills to students.

6 – Financing to support simplified and optimized learning

National promised to “simplify and streamline” the learning support funding application process by reducing regional variation in funding levels, reducing “unnecessary interactions with the bureaucracy” and allowing parents and educators to set up learning plans to long term.

7 – Multidisciplinary teams in secondary schools

I would test multidisciplinary teams of specialized support staff in secondary schools made up of professionals such as general practitioners, nurses, counselors, and mental health professionals.
health workers in secondary schools.

If effective, it will “scale up quickly.”

It would also work to shift central government resources to regional and local levels when possible.

8 – More charter schools

National would exempt families of children with learning needs from the school zone
restrictions so that they could enroll their child in the school of their choice.

Aim to establish 25 new partner schools by 2023, including some focused on high-priority students like Māori and Pasifika, children with additional learning needs, and in specialized education areas like science, technology, engineering, and math (Stem).

It would also consider applications for special status from schools that specifically serve children with learning needs.

Early childhood education

National said that while most ECE centers did a great job, complaints increased from 246 to 430 between 2013 and 2018.

To combat this, it would introduce spot checks and implement stricter deadlines for centers to make improvements.

It would also tell parents if a center their child attended received a provisional license and would cancel all licenses if a center received a provisional license for the third time.

It would also change the priorities of the funds currently allocated to about 10% of the EPI centers that hire 100% qualified staff.

In this year’s budget, the government allocated $ 278 million to provide higher subsidies to preschools with 100 percent qualified teachers.

This has been a point of contention between Labor and national governments, as Helen Clark introduced in 2005 a higher funding rate for ECE services with 100% qualified teachers.

But in 2010 this was ruled out by the John Key government.

National also pledged to continue increasing minimum wage requirements.
for qualified ECE personnel in government licensed services.

This year, the government raised the minimum wage for qualified early childhood teachers who are not teaching in kindergarten to $ 49.86, compared to $ 45,491 or $ 46,832, to bring them in line with kindergarten teachers. .

National would also work to bridge the funding gap between kindergarten and non-kindergarten ECE services.

You have already pledged $ 3,000 for each expectant mother to spend on maternity or early childhood services within the child’s first 1,000 days.

Elementary and secondary schools

In addition to its commitment to children with learning needs, National also:

• Make sure all parents have reports in “plain English” on their children’s progress.

• Ask the ERO to identify which schools are having a high impact on student achievement, including specific students such as Maori or Pasifika students, to find out how this could be replicated.

• Legislate that all children have the opportunity to learn at least one other language in elementary and middle schools, and boards should consult with their communities about which of the 10 priority languages ​​should be taught.

• Spend $ 40 million a year on developing and providing resources for learning a second language, with a focus on Te Reo in elementary schools.

• Require high schools to teach financial literacy.

• Invest 340 million dollars over four years to progressively reduce the number of students per teacher
ratios in elementary schools.

• Raise entry requirements over time for people entering new teacher education with more intensive screening, testing, and interviewing of applicants.

• Identify and train more young directors.

• Return enrollment and zoning schemes to local school boards. Last year, the government established an agency to oversee zoning in an attempt to achieve more equitable outcomes for all students and to prevent schools from “eliminating” the best students to compete with each other.

• Work with iwi and other Maori community organizations to develop education together
solutions for young Maori.

• Reintroduce the NCEA performance targets for Maori and Pacific students.

• Reworking the Food in Schools program so that it was not universal, but focused on students who needed it.

• Lead the Ministry of Education to develop a project partnership for a five-year program to repair and rebuild our schools.

• Develop a 30-year school growth plan to include regional projections
for roll growth and construction of new schools.