Budget 2017: New classrooms for Wellington schools

  • Tim Macindoe
Education Budget 2017

Both Berhampore School and Maungaraki School in Wellington will receive funding to build new classrooms as part of Budget 2017, Associate Education Minister Tim Macindoe announced today.

Mr Macindoe visited Maungaraki School today to share the news with the school.

The funding of $1 million will provide both schools with one new classroom each.

“This investment will enable the schools to accommodate recent roll growth and reinforces our commitment to invest in areas of growth across the country,” says Mr Macindoe.

“Maungaraki School is known for their rich, stimulating learning environments, impressive student achievement and positive student engagement. This new classroom will enable them to cater for more students in the area as well as provide them with a modern learning space for the school to continue their outstanding performance.”

Around sixty per cent of Berhampore School’s roll is made up of students for whom English is not their first language and their students come from over twenty different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The school also hosts students from a wide range of socio-economic circumstances and provides an intensive programme for those students who require additional learning support.

Mr Macindoe says the school is diverse in every sense and has been extremely successful at integrating their students and using the diversity to inspire learning. As a result, the school’s roll has been increasing and they now require an additional learning space to cater for this growth. The Ministry of Education will work with the school to ensure that their new classroom is not only fit-for-purpose but encompasses and embraces the diverse nature of the school and the outcomes they set out to achieve.

“With this investment, we have now committed over $9 million dollars of roll growth funding to the Wellington region over the past two years, and around $139 million in redevelopments at twelve Wellington schools since November 2015.”

Today’s announcement is the first of the second round of infrastructure investments being delivered as part of this year’s Budget.

Through Budget 2017 the Government is investing a total of $456.5 million in education infrastructure, meaning over $5 billion has been invested in expanding and improving the condition of our schools.

It is expected that the new classrooms will be operational for the full duration of the 2019 school year.