The Government has allocated $53 million in the 2025 Budget to pay for teacher registrations and practising certificates, the Education Minister announced today.
In a pre-Budget announcement Education Minister Erica Stanford said the Government has committed funding of $53 million from Budget 2025 to cover fees through to 2028, including any increases the Teaching Council may implement through their current fee review.
Speaking from Boulcott School in Wellington, Stanford acknowledged the vast number of changes made to the curriculum over the past year, and thanked teachers for their “ongoing hard work, dedication, professionalism and the passion they have for teaching”.
“As we work to raise standards and restore trust in the education system, it is important that we support the teaching workforce leading this reform. The Government has promised to remove this cost, and we have delivered,” she said in a statement.
“From July 1, teachers will save up to $550 when applying for registration or renewing their practising certificate. This initiative will benefit around 40,000 fulltime and part time school and early learning teachers in the first year of funding and approximately 115,000 across the three years.”
‘A positive step’ – PPTA responds
Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua president Chris Abercrombie welcomed the decision, saying it let teachers know that their professional expertise was “valued and provides an incentive to stay in the job”.
“The Government’s decision to pay our Teaching Council fees indicates that it realises it needs to do everything it can to keep teachers in the profession in the midst of a chronic secondary teacher shortage,” he said.
“Teaching is an extremely rewarding and amazing profession; it is also an increasingly challenging and demanding one, so we need to everything possible to keep all of our experienced and skilled teachers in the workforce. Paying their Teaching Council fees is a step in the right direction.”
Abercrombie said the decision was “a positive step” and also important in terms of keeping beginning and new teachers in the profession.
“PPTA Te Wehengarua looks forward to working with the Government on other steps to attract graduates into secondary teaching and keep our highly experienced and skilled teachers in the workforce. These include making teachers’ salaries more attractive and making the job more manageable.”
‘Principals welcome this initiative’ – NZPF
Gavin Beere, who heads the New Zealand Principals Federation on policy, said he was “optimistic that it will attract more relief staff and help us retain more beginning teachers”.
“Staff shortages are an issue for many schools right across the country and we hope that this move might help, at least a little bit,” he said.
Beere said principals would be hoping for more announcements around substantially boosting learning support.
“Since the Government introduced the ‘inclusion’ policy in the mid-1980s, so that every child, irrespective of ability or capability, could attend their local school, the policy has never been properly funded,” he said.
“It is every principal’s number one priority and we look forward to the Minister who is courageous enough to recognise the need and properly fund it.”