Ministry of Education deputy secretary Nicholas Pole said the Positive Behaviour for Learning Action Plan included programmes and initiatives for parents and teachers, school-wide programmes, improved behaviour crisis support for schools and improved intensive programmes for individual pupils with severe behaviour problems.
The initiatives will be implemented during the next five years, with a budget of $45 million, the money coming from present educational services.
Otago Primary Principals Association president Jenny Clarke said the plan was an encouraging sign that schools were getting much needed resourcing to deal with disruptive behaviours.
"Principals in Otago are often being asked to do more with less, as population-based funding is applied.
"With these additional resources, the plan gives principals and the ministry more options to direct families to get suitable support."
However, secondary principals in Otago were concerned the new plan would not make rural schools any safer.
Otago Secondary Principals Association chairman Philip Craigie said a small percentage of pupils required clinical services in a timely manner, no matter where they lived or what income bracket they fell into.
However, he believed rural and remote schools were disadvantaged because the need for services did not match their actual availability.
He said the plan was flawed because it was trying to achieve results with no extra funding at a time when support service provision for schools around the country was already "extremely patchy".
Post Primary Teachers Association president Kate Gainsford said the plan was disappointing.
She said nothing in the plan seemed to target effective intervention for the most challenging 5% of teens.
"This plan once again relies on teachers and schools to deal with complex problems - a move that the Government's own advisory group on conduct problems has already said is simply not good enough."
Mr Pole acknowledged the more complex and challenging behaviour of older pupils would require further attention as the plan was implemented.
