Additional special education funding barely scratches the surface

30 January 2015

The re-announcement today that an extra 1500 students with special needs will receive teacher aide assistance this year is a start, but will barely scratch the surface of need in our schools.

NZEI Te Riu Roa President Louise Green said that about 30,000 children (three percent) have high special education needs but funding is rationed to just one percent. That means that 20,000 children miss out on the funding.

There are an additional 40,000-60,000 students with moderate special education needs, many of whom get minimal classroom assistance – or less.

“One hour a day of teacher aide assistance for 1500 students with special needs will help a handful of kids - and will eventually extend to another 2500 children - but what about all the others who are going to miss out?” said Ms Green.

“These additional teacher aide hours also need to be supported with professional development and training for support staff and teachers, and removal of the staffing cap on specialist MoE field staff,” she said.

“It is good that the government recognises the need for more funding in special education, but this announcement is the cheap option. NZEI has long been calling for funding to be extended to all 20,000 high needs children who currently miss out, at a cost of $180 million a year. That’s money well spent if we want all children to have the opportunity to succeed.”

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