The Government is accelerating $413 million of investment in school infrastructure to improve classrooms and provide a significant boost for builders and tradies across New Zealand immediately, Education Minister Erica Stanford says.
“Every child deserves to learn in a warm, dry and safe classroom.
“We have a significant pipeline of maintenance work to keep our schools in great shape, but we’re accelerating $413 million of projects so they can get underway sooner.
“This will enable schools to do significant maintenance over the coming summer holidays, and support more rural and isolated schools to upgrade their infrastructure.
“This is great news for schools and communities that will benefit for better learning spaces, but it will also power up the trade and construction sectors, creating a steady flow of jobs for builders, plumbers, roofers and more.”
The investment package will consist of:
- $58 million for operating maintenance work for all schools.
- $255 million for internal and external improvements on all isolated, small and rural schools, representing half of all state schools.
- $100 million over five years for urgent and essential infrastructure work.
“This significant investment highlights our Government’s commitment to our young people and their education, but also but a willingness to stimulate important parts of our economy that need it,” Stanford says.
“This work was always going to be needed to ensure that existing infrastructure doesn’t end up with bigger problems down the track. We’re bringing it forward to support our schools, and our tradespeople now.
“Our Government has turned around the delivery of school property. We’ve halved the cost of a new classroom from $1.2 million to $620,000, the Ministry of Education is now generating more cost-savings by focusing on offsite manufacturing solutions, and communication with schools has improved.
“Our focus remains on driving efficiencies across the school property portfolio, so parents, teachers and communities have clarity and certainty about their school’s future,” Stanford says.
The $413 million package consists of $58 million of new money, $100 million from Budget 24, $80 million of Ministry of Education Baseline, and $175 million of brought-forward funding.
Notes:
– $58 million one-off top up to the Property Maintenance Grant
This will support schools’ operating maintenance works such as painting, exterior washdowns, roof and cladding repairs, and other minor fixes. Schools will be eligible for either $5000 or 50 percent of their 2025 Property Maintenance Grant funding, whichever is greater, and will be able to apply online. For 203 small schools, the $5000 top up represents more than 50% of their annual PMG funding.
– Additional $255 million investment in Ngā Iti Kahurangi (NIK) programme
This programme delivers internal and external improvement works to ALL 934 isolated, small, and/or rural schools, representing nearly half of all state schools nationwide. The funding boost will expand the programme’s scope of works to include vinyl flooring, heating, repairs and maintenance to windows, roofing (including flashings, gutters and downpipes) and external building fabric. It will also expand the scope of qualified schools to include those with student rolls of up to 200.
– $100 million addition to Supplementary 5-Year Agreement (5YA) property maintenance fund
The Government is allocating $100 million over the next five years to accommodate more schools requiring urgent and essential infrastructure works through the Supplementary 5-Year Agreement (5YA) property maintenance funding. Thanks to increased investment in maintenance through Budget 24 and 25, school property can now allocate more funding to schools to deal with urgent property maintenance that they can’t afford.
This builds on the $250 million of supplementary funding ringfenced each year. The Ministry has already communicated with the first 270 schools that have been allocated funding.
Through this additional investment, a further 45 school-led projects will be approved by the end of 2025.
ENDS
