The government will spend NZ$21.7 million over five years to expand the School Onsite Training Programme, letting trainee teachers spend up to three days a week in classrooms while completing their university study (RNZ).

Education Minister Erica Stanford announced the funding on 2 August 2026. The programme places trainees in schools alongside their coursework, instead of relying on the shorter practicum placements (supervised stints in a classroom) that conventional teacher training typically uses.

The programme has grown quickly. It started with 147 places in 2024, expanded to 528 in 2026, and will reach 660 in 2027 before settling at 704 places every year from 2028. It was opened to primary teacher training in 2025, responding to shortages across both primary and secondary schools.

That broader access has led to a rebalancing. Workforce data now shows a small oversupply of primary teachers, so the government is directing more training places towards secondary teaching. The programme also targets rural and isolated communities by allowing providers to deliver courses online, meaning people can train as teachers without leaving their hometowns.

From 2027, trainees in the programme will receive a stipend of NZ$20,660 to help cover course fees and living costs. The funding also adds 50 places to the Teacher Bonding Scheme, raising the 2026/27 cohort from 185 to 235. That scheme pays eligible teachers NZ$40,000 over five years to stay at schools that struggle with staffing.

The money has been reprioritised from elsewhere in the education portfolio. The classroom training scheme funding comes from the Overseas Relocation Grant, which reimbursed early childhood teachers moving to New Zealand. The Teacher Bonding Scheme expansion is funded from leftover money in the Voluntary Bonding Scheme, which closed to new entrants the previous year.

An Education Review Office report found only one in five principals considered new teacher graduates ready for the classroom. The programme's classroom-heavy model directly targets that readiness gap, giving trainees sustained, structured time in front of students before they graduate.

The announcement builds on earlier workforce investments. Budget 2024 allocated $52.625 million over four years to attracting, training and retaining teachers (Ministry of Education). Budget 2026 adds a 4% increase to the tertiary fee subsidy for the 528 trainee teachers currently in the School Onsite Training Programme, according to Ministry of Education budget documents (Ministry of Education). Budget 2026 also raises early childhood education subsidy rates from 1 July 2026 under the same funding package.

The wider Budget 2026 education spend includes $136.9 million in operating expenditure over four years across 12 components to strengthen maths and literacy in primary learning (Ministry of Education), and $645.8 million in operating funding with $100.9 million in capital for learning support initiatives (Ministry of Education).

For those working in the sector, the decisions to watch are the shift towards secondary training and the introduction of the stipend. The primary oversupply signal is modest, but it is the first time the programme has actively rebalanced places by sector rather than simply expanding across the board. The stipend brings the School Onsite Training Programme closer to an employment model than a conventional study pathway, and the fact that it starts in 2027 rather than immediately gives providers and schools a transition window.

The reprioritisation is the other detail worth noting. Closing the Overseas Relocation Grant to fund domestic classroom training signals a clear preference for growing the workforce at home rather than recruiting from offshore. Whether the trade-off pays off will depend on whether 704 annual places, plus a stipend, is enough to draw people into teaching who would not otherwise have entered the profession.