Budget 2025: Investing in students' maths and pāngarau achievement

12 May 2025

The Minister of Education, Hon Erica Stanford, has announced a significant Budget 2025 investment to support teachers and strengthen mathematics and pāngarau learning across Aotearoa’s education system.

The package includes three key initiatives:

• Early maths and pāngarau check – the availability of a nationally-consistent, evidence-based tool at the end of Year 2 to help identify students who need additional support early.
• Targeted intervention teachers for maths and pāngarau – 143 FTTE to deliver targeted, evidence-based teaching and accelerate learner progress in maths and pāngarau in Years 0-6. This staffing will be allocated across schools and kura, similar to the early structured literacy support this year. 
• Targeted support for Year 7–8 students – Supporting up to 34,000 students each year who are not yet at curriculum level. This builds on the current trial for Years 7 and 8 which is supporting 3000 students. Students will be supported in small groups using digital learning platforms, focused on accelerating their learning.

These initiatives are designed to work together as a cohesive, system-wide response—supporting learners from their first years at school through to the transition into secondary education.

More detail is available in the information sheet