Nats slash education
Did anyone else notice that for all this supposed government waste that National was going to get rid of it made only $500 million (less than 0.7% government spending) of ‘savings’ per year in the Budget.
To get these ‘savings’ that it had to cut education spending savagely:
- Cut Early Childhood Education Professional Development – $9.8m
- Rescinding Previous Government’s Proposed Ratio improvements. Currently different adult:child ratios apply for children under two years old, and children two years old and over. The proposal was to shift this age split to the age of two and a half – $275.3m
- Cut Schooling Professional Development – $35.8m
- Cut School Support Programmes – $6m
- Cut Innovations Pool for Students At Risk, Gifted and Talented School Support, Artists in Schools, Children’s and Young People’s Lifestyles – $11.7m
- Resourcing. The Government aims to save about $50 million per year or 1.5% of its total spend of $3.231 billion on teacher staffing [cutting 1.5% of funding for teachers is about 1000 fewer teachers] about $95m Savings Across the Staffing Budget
- Cut Education Advocacy Service and Careers Advice – $14.2m
- Cut Scholarships – $98.1m
- Disestablish Small Funds – $37.4m
- Phase out CPI Adjustments for Tertiary Education Funding – $172.8m
- Reducing Tertiary Education Capability Funds – $117.1m
- Reducing Low Priority Tertiary Provision – $87.4m
- Removing Growth in Literacy, Language and Numeracy – $94.3m
- Cut the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) – $31.4m
- Cut Education Counsellor Network, Export Education Innovation Programme (EEIP), International Scholarships – $29.1m
- Reducing Ministry of Education Policy Advice Expenditure – $3.9m
- Reducing Ministry of Education’s General Operating Expenditure – $18.5m
- Reducing Ministry Activity in Support and Resources for Teachers – $23.6m
- Cutting information campaigns -$20m
Total – $1181.4 million over four years
Doesn’t seem like waste to me. Seems like National is cutting education, the very thing we need to become a wealthier country. Seems like there’s another reason to call her Chopper Tolley.
– Marty G
[UPDATE: Maryan Street has a petition to restore the adult and community education funding here. Trevor Mallard has details here.]
[Update 2: I had missed the last of the cuts in the original post and added up the total too low. Thanks for vidiot who kindly lambasted me on the errors of my ways in the comment thread. So much easier than defending the slashing of education funding, eh, vidiot? If anything I think my mistakes show we need to be putting more into education]