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  25 MAY 2015
He Pānui Kōhungahunga
Early Learning Bulletin
 
Budget 2015
Budget implications for the Early Learning Sector
The Government announced Budget 2015 on 21 May. This gives the Government the opportunity to outline its financial priorities for the year and announce new initiatives.
 
Will anything from the Budget affect your ECE service?
 
ECE funding rates will not change as a result of Budget 2015, and no Ministry initiatives in the ECE sector, like Targeted Assistance for Participation (TAP) or Strengthening Early Learning Opportunities (SELO), will be affected.
 
The Government has put an extra $74.9 million over four years into ECE to ensure more children are able to participate for more hours.
 
Childcare Assistance
 
The Government is focused on breaking the cycle of material hardship among families with children. This is why, amongst other things, it has bumped up the top Childcare Assistance rate from $4 per hour to $5 per hour, from 4 April 2016. This will help lower income families move into work and help them afford to pay their ECE fees.
 
For more information on the $790 million material hardship package this initiative is part of, click here.
 
Education-wide Funding System
 
We think it’s important to have a streamlined, future-proofed funding system. This is why the Government has invested some money to help us build a new system to calculate funding for ECE, schools, and some parts of the special education system.
 
More information
 
If you’d like more information on the Education announcements in Budget 2015, click here.
 
Feedback
Send us your feedback, comments or questions »
 
Contact Peter Hughes
Send a message directly to Peter Hughes
 
Contact us at: ece.info@education.govt.nz | 0800 ECE ECE | education.govt.nz
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