The National-led coalition’s Budget 2025 is a performance in sleight of hand, dressing up austerity as progress while our schools crumble under the weight of underfunding. Education Minister Erica Stanford boasts of a “seismic shift” in education spending, but the numbers tell a different story, a grim tale of slashed budgets, neglected infrastructure, and a growing population left to fend for itself.
Budget 2025 allocates $2.5 billion over four years for education, with $613.5 million reprioritised from “underperforming” initiatives like the Kāhui Ako scheme, which supported teacher collaboration across schools. Sounds strategic, until you realise this “reprioritisation” is a fancy word for cuts.
The coalition’s total spend on early childhood and school education creeps up to $19.85 billion in 2025-26, but drops to $19 billion and $18.9 billion in subsequent years. Meanwhile, New Zealand’s population is growing at 1.5-2% annually, and inflation is hovering around 2.5%. A nominal increase of just 1.12% in education spending for 2024-25 translates to a real-terms cut of 1.09% when adjusted for inflation. Add population growth, and the per-student funding is effectively gutted. Schools are once again being asked to do more with less.
Last Friday, RNZ reported:
The Budget included a myriad of cuts to redirect funding to other education initiatives.
"We have assessed underspends and reprioritised initiatives that are underperforming or lack clear evidence that they're delivering intended outcomes," Stanford said.
The biggest cut was ending the Kahui Ako scheme, which paid about 4000 teachers extra to lead improvements in groups of schools, resulting in a reprioritisation of $375m over four years.
The 2025 education budget, when adjusted for inflation and 0.8% child population growth, reflects a 2.18% real-terms cut per student. This shortfall, alongside declining capital funding, leaves schools and early childhood providers struggling to maintain standards in a growing, inflation-pressured environment.
Our schools are already on their knees. Decades of underinvestment have left classrooms leaking, heating systems failing, and resources stretched thin. The National Education Growth Plan, meant to address roll growth, is a band-aid on a broken system. Budget 2025 throws $711.9 million at school property, but this barely scratches the surface when you consider the $455.39 million allocated in 2023 was already insufficient for new classrooms and repairs. With student numbers rising, schools in high-growth areas like Auckland and Tauranga are bursting at the seams, yet the coalition’s capital funding drops by $600 million by 2027-28. This isn’t investment; it’s managed decline.
The coalition’s priorities are telling. While they scrounge $5.3 billion in savings across the public sector, they’ve found $15.7 million to subsidise private schools, because apparently, elite institutions need the cash more than state schools with mouldy walls. The Ka Ora, Ka Ako school lunch programme, vital for kids facing food insecurity, is only funded until 2026, leaving its future uncertain. Meanwhile, $12.8 billion is slashed from pay equity negotiations, hitting teachers and support staff hard. These are the people holding our education system together, yet they’re being told to tighten their belts. The $2.9 billion for landlords and $6.6 billion for business owners alone totals $9.5 billion, dwarfing the $2.5 billion over four years for education.
The coalition’s rhetoric about “economic growth” and “fiscal discipline” rings hollow when our kids are crammed into dilapidated classrooms with overworked teachers. Inflation and population growth demand at least a 4-5% funding increase just to maintain current service levels, yet they're getting crumbs. This budget isn’t about building a brighter future; it’s about short-changing our tamariki while dressing it up as reform. If National thinks this will go unnoticed, they’re in for a rude awakening come the next election.
