A funding boost for schools in this year's budget has failed to impress, with unions saying the extra money does not keep up with inflation.
Schools and early childhood education (ECE) will receive a $1.4 billion increase in funding over the next four years.
Today's budget allocated an extra $621.2 million towards schools, including $118.1 million for operational costs. An additional $550.3m will be spent on early childhood education (ECE), with a particular focus on increasing participation from Maori, Pacific and low-income families.
The Post Primary Teachers Association president Robin Duff said secondary schools would have less to spend on each student as the budget did not compensate for inflation.
"The 2.9 percent increase is fudging the numbers - in effect, all schools will have less money to spend on each student next year than this year," he said.
Mr Duff did see some positives for secondary education, with increased support to alternative education funding and ultra-fast broadband.
The budget looked good on the surface but last year's cuts had impacted so badly on early childhood services that the new funding would only meet expected roll growth, said Ian Leckie, president of primary teachers' union the New Zealand Educational Institute Te Riu Roa.
"Early childhood services will still be significantly worse off than they were before the funding cuts took place and parents and families will continue to pay the price," he said.
The increases came nowhere near the rate of inflation and would hardly scratch the surface for those schools battling increased running costs, Mr Leckie said.
The Early Childhood Council saw the budget more favourably, with chief executive Peter Reynolds saying it was a relief after the cuts of last year.
It was pleasing to see the Government was targeting some new spending to improve access and quality for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
"These are the children who benefit most from early childhood education, but who are also most likely to miss out," Mr Reynolds said.
It was possible the requirement for early childhood centres to pay increased KiwiSaver contributions might lead to "slight increases in costs for parents" and it was disappointing there was not more support for early childhood centres affected by the Canterbury earthquakes, he said.
Education Minister Anne Tolley said increased education funding was aimed at building on work done during the past two years, including in ECE, national standards and the Youth Guarantee scheme.
Trades and service academies are to receive $66.5m, while $12m will go towards lifting Maori achievement.
An extra $59.7m is to be pumped into school properties, while $51.5m will go into building infrastructure for ultra-fast broadband in schools.
Among the extra funding, $416.7m has been allocated to meet the increased demand from population growth, $61m for cost increases, $20.8m for an early learning information system, and $20.3m to fund ECE for children in care and to extend a home interaction programme.
Another $21.5m will be used to extend the ECE equity fund, which provides additional resources to services with high enrolments of children from priority groups.
