February 27, 2024
Schoolwork shock for National Budget plan
Education Minister Erica Stanford is blaming former Labour education ministers Chris Hipkins and Jan Tinnetti for what she calls a budget blowout on school upgrades.
The Government will review the school property system, with Ms Stanford saying the ministry has already paused 20 building projects and is looking at another 350 where expectations far exceeded what could delivered.
Ms Stanford announced an inquiry into school properties after it was revealed that more than 100 new classroom builds were in doubt.
“The buck stops with the previous Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins for 5 years and then Jan Tinnetti, to not make sure that they were implementing good value for money systems and processes in school property so that we didn’t end up with a pipeline of projects that were not able to be delivered on,” she says.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins says National is making excuses to cut much-needed school building projects as it puts tax cuts over classroom.
He says Labour inherited damp, mouldy classrooms and schools with no space and no funding, and during its term it upgraded every school in the country as well as building thousands of classrooms as rolls grew.