Media release: School resources insufficient, regardless of decile
11am Monday 6 November 2017
Only 8% of primary and intermediate principals found their school operational funding sufficient in 2016, and just under
half reduced their spending. Principals’ views of the insufficiency of resources were unrelated to school decile.
These are some of the findings in a new report from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) National
Survey of Primary and Intermediate Schools 2016.
As well as the shortfall in operational funding, principals’ responses indicated a growing shortfall in staffing since
2013.
Two-thirds of principals were using their operational funding and locally raised funds to employ additional teaching
staff. Schools mainly used additional staff to teach classes, support literacy or numeracy, or support students with
additional learning needs.
The proportion of schools having difficulty finding suitable teachers had doubled since 2013, to 41%.
‘Decile was associated with a school’s ability to find suitable staff,’ Cathy Wylie said. ’Sixty-four percent of decile
1–2 schools had difficulty, compared with 31% of decile 9–10 schools.’
Lower decile schools were more likely to be affected by student mobility and transience. This has an impact on school
resourcing because of the uncertainty about staffing, and the cost of establishing programmes to support students who
change schools unexpectedly during the year.
The NZCER survey got responses from a nationally representative sample of 349 English-medium state and state-integrated
primary and intermediate schools. The survey was conducted from August to September 2016.
The findings have been released in a series of reports, all of which are available on the NZCER website. The report
‘School resources, relations with other schools, and support’ is available at: http://www.nzcer.org.nz/school_resources_national_survey_2016