{"id":478898,"date":"2026-06-15T19:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T19:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/478898\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T19:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T19:56:12","slug":"record-90000-students-need-english-support-as-migration-surges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/478898\/","title":{"rendered":"Record 90,000 students need English support as migration surges"},"content":{"rendered":"

The figures come amid continued migration<\/a> inflows, with a net 24,000 migrants arriving in the year to March.<\/p>\n

But Teachers of English to Other Languages Aotearoa New Zealand (TESOL) president Gwenna Finikin said the figures do not reflect the full extent of need in schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I look at my school, probably two-thirds are from originally non-English speaking backgrounds, but some of them just don\u2019t make the cuts to even go for funding because there\u2019s not the funding available<\/a> and also it\u2019s just so difficult personnel-wise to give them all the service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finikin said schools are working within constrained staffing and resourcing, often stretching general teaching capacity to meet specialist needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cSchools will always do their best, but [the system] is very stressed because children show up and we don\u2019t necessarily have trained staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said schools are frequently relying on non-specialist staff as a result.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome are having to use teacher aides to take groups and then their learning support co-ordinator will have to do the planning for that,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the learning support co-ordinators aren\u2019t necessarily trained in ESOL [English for Speakers of Other Languages] either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finikin said that creates a \u201chuge mismatch\u201d between need and available support.<\/p>\n

She also pointed to the increasing diversity<\/a> of the children concerned, as many ESOL students also need learning support for disabilities or behavioural issues.<\/p>\n

Finikin said in her school\u2019s Ongoing Resource Scheme programme \u2013 for students with the highest learning needs \u2013 only one child from a New Zealand English-speaking background has participated in the past 10 years, with all others from migrant backgrounds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She added that funding<\/a> has not kept pace with demand, with schools often forced into difficult allocation decisions.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Education provides ESOL funding in addition to a school\u2019s operational grant, with rates set at $780 per year for Year 0\u20138 students and $1000 per year for Year 9\u201313 students (excluding GST).<\/p>\n

National Services and Programmes group service manager Andrea Williams said the most recent increase came in Budget 2020, when rates rose from $700 to $780 for primary students and from $900 to $1000 for secondary students.<\/p>\n

Migration peaked in the year to October 2023, with around 130,000 net arrivals, before easing more recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the funding rate has not increased, this year\u2019s Budget provides a further $10 million for ESOL in schools, bringing the annual budget<\/a> to $73m,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Williams also confirmed that a decision announced last month to cut Year 0\u20131 eligibility for the rest of this year had been reversed, for both currently funded students and new entrants.<\/p>\n

Finikin said the issue is not only funding but also workforce capability and training.<\/p>\n

She said schools need more resourcing to employ specialist staff, alongside better training for those working in classrooms.<\/p>\n

Without that, she said, schools will continue to absorb rising demand without the capacity to fully respond.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re a country that\u2019s going to encourage migrancy, then we need to be a country that supports the children who those migrants bring with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause if we\u2019re saying you can only come, but not if your child\u2019s going to cost us money, then we\u2019re saying we don\u2019t actually want the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaime Cunningham is a Christchurch-based reporter with a focus on education and general news. She joined Newstalk ZB in 2023 after working as a sports reporter at the Christchurch Star.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The figures come amid continued migration inflows, with a net 24,000 migrants arriving in the year to March.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[66414,806,12509,803,380,4190,8609,11908,5838,11285,5983,8751,130,5971,111,43,139,4061,69,241044,49478,1974,6649,3767,1886,21938,131,1961,379],"class_list":["post-478898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-66414","tag-as","tag-capacity","tag-continue","tag-decade","tag-demand","tag-double","tag-english","tag-help","tag-learning","tag-levels","tag-migration","tag-more","tag-need","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-number","tag-nz","tag-outstrip","tag-receiving","tag-record","tag-schools","tag-students","tag-support","tag-surges","tag-than","tag-this","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}