📋 Tender Overview
According to Education Minister Erica Stanford, Budget 2026 will invest 2.1 billion to continue building the foundations of a world-leading education system that will prepare New Zealands school children for success.
Financial Plans 2024, 2025 focused on excellence in the teaching of basic facts by investing heavily in education in elementary and middle school. In Budget Plan 2026, the focus will shift to high school achievement and assessment as we begin to reform our high school grading system.
This financial plan invests heavily in the development of our national high school curriculum, which provides resources for students and rich professional development for teachers.
61 million to develop resources for the revised New Zealand Curriculum and to improve the curriculum website, Tahurangi.
20 million to provide professional learning and professional development for 32,000 high school teachers to implement the new curriculum and national qualifications.
This Government is supporting more young people to participate in industry-led careers, by investing in a high-quality curriculum and expanding vocational training opportunities. Budget 2026 has two proposals for this:
15 million to enable Industrial Programs Boards to develop new industry-led high school programs that focus on a specific industry eg manufacturing or advanced industries. This will support more students to receive a high-quality vocational education and their post-secondary education.
69 million to nearly double the number of places in Kura Lingarehe to 20,000 by 2030 offering an industry-led curriculum.
These investments will enable New Zealand students to develop skills that are ready for a job, relevant to the world of business and industry while they are in high school. This is good for new direction, entrepreneurship, reducing unemployment, especially the growth of the world economy. This will increase security and enable the people to obtain a high-skilled job position that will allow them to carefully choose their life in the world.
Industrial Software Boards are leading the development of the curriculum so that the vocational courses in schools are closely aligned with the needs of the real world of work, which will reduce the lack of relevance of the skills that have been learned, so that the industry of tomorrow will grow.
Our national qualifications can be updated by providing a 90 million grant to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority NZQA. This will ensure that NZQA is supported by a modern digital system as they develop and implement our new national qualifications.
In Budget 2026, we will continue our investment in the education sector, including a grant for the increase in Kiwisaver savings by the Government, a salary adjustment for positions in the School Teacher Training Program and some important technical improvements to pay staff that will ensure that teachers are paid correctly at the right time, so that the flow is more gradual than before.
As announced recently, the Government will invest an additional 131 million in the next phase of Early Childhood Excellence. These programs build on the major reforms in literacy and numeracy invested in by Budgets 2024 and 2025 as we continue to build the foundations of a world-leading education system.
Budget Plan 2026 will also provide additional funding for educational support to better meet the needs of students. This includes 22 million for students with special needs, 3 million for Deaf Education services and 10 million to meet the need for English as a Foreign Language ESOL.
Furthermore, Budget 2026 also includes significant investments in other key education areas, including:
160 million represents a 2 percent increase in school administration funding.
559 million to expand and maintain school facilities, allowing for:
More than 4,700 student positions across new schools, expansions, and classrooms, including a 21 million increase in enrollment at Kura Kaupapa Maori.
Expediting no more than 10 major new developments and no more than 150 learning support updates.
A new private school with 20 sponsored satellite courses
A special fund to support schools for fuel-related costs.
In order to implement this investment, we have assessed the funds that may not be spent, and we have brought forward the projects that are not very successful or that are not clear.There is overwhelming evidence that the intended outcomes are being achieved. It has 65 million in the budget earmarked for reinvestment in key education programs.
According to Ms Stanford, Financial Plan 2026 is being built on a solid foundation of reforms to Early Learning Excellence. We will continue to invest to increase achievement and close the equity gap, so that all school children have the education, skills and abilities they need to reach their full potential.
