Teacher aides reviewed

The Ministry of Education is currently consulting on how teacher aides are resourced in schools.

There are two main sources of government funding for teacher aides – learning support and operational grant funding.

The majority of schools spend more than the learning support teacher aide funding allocated to them on teacher aides, topping up with a portion of their operational grant funding and locally raised funds.

Primary schools employ the most teacher aides and fund the most hours of support from teacher aides for learners. This is in part because there are more students in Years 1-8 than Years 9-15, but also because many of the learning support interventions are aimed at primary school year levels.

Key issues identified in work on the project so far has identified that the current application process for funding is time consuming and administrative and funding is unpredictable, contestable and time-limited (often short term.

The group overseeing the review is expected to submit their final recommendations to the Minister of Education by the middle of this year.