top of page
Search

Budget 2025 and the Realities of Neurodivergent Literacy Support: A Critical Perspective

New Zealand’s Budget 2025 promises a transformative boost to learning support, with headlines touting $2.5 billion in education spending over four years and major investments in additional learning needs, teacher aides, early intervention, and specialist provision. At first glance, this seems a watershed moment—

more teacher aide hours, expanded early intervention, and increased operational grants for schools. However, a closer reading exposes both strengths and substantive gaps, especially through the lens of specialist practice and the layered needs of neurodivergent students.


Promises, promises.
Promises, promises.

Headline Investments: Ambition Meets Reality

The budget allocates $646 million specifically to learning support, with up to 900,000 extra teacher aide hours from 2028, extending early intervention services to the end of Year 1, and new funding for speech language therapists, psychologists, and specialist classrooms. There is a pledge for “an additional 1667 teacher aides” and improved access to Learning Support Coordinators in all Year 1-8 schools.


Despite the headline numbers, when distributed across the country’s 2,500 schools, this equates to less than one teacher aide per school—and operational realities mean coverage, rather than depth, is achieved. The recurrent challenge of “deficit framing”—where families must emphasise problems over strengths to secure support—remains unaddressed, compounding emotional strain and undermining strengths-based practice.


Early Intervention and Service Expansion: Progress with Caveats

Expanding Early Intervention Services into the first year of primary school is an overdue step, broadening eligible supports beyond early childhood. More children will have access to speech, language, and behavioural support earlier, with targeted funding to clear waitlists for 3,000+ children. This is positive, but places heavy reliance on identification systems and external expertise, with little guarantee of continuity or family-centred planning as children progress through school.


Teacher aides—while numerically increased—are often thrust into ambiguous roles, lacking specialist literacy training, and charged with “catch-up” rather than proactive, strength-based support. The system remains oriented around remediation rather than advanced, individualised growth.


Structured Literacy, Professional Development, and Inclusion

Budget 2025’s $298 million for curriculum and assessment includes $132 million for “accelerated learning in literacy and maths,” but details on implementation, staff capability development, and direct links to evidence-based approaches (such as structured literacy) are sparse. $3 million earmarked for teacher aide professional development is positive, yet may be diluted by competing demands for “social, emotional, wellbeing, behavioural, and neurodiverse needs” training—without rigorous focus, gains are likely minimal.


The introduction of 78.5 additional speech language therapists and a new pipeline for psychologists signals an intent to build specialist capacity, yet does not ensure these professionals will be deployed in close partnership with teachers, tutors, and families for holistically planned literacy intervention.


Attendance, Equity, and Systemic Barriers

Large investments in attendance services ($140 million) and Māori learner success ($104 million, including new classrooms) rightly address wider equity concerns. However, systemic barriers persist: schools must submit deficit-focused funding applications, vulnerability is not always matched with specialist support, and staff are still expected to fill gaps in isolation, a problem documented extensively in qualitative research from my own inquiry and others.


Specialist Perspective: The Literacy Steps Model

From my vantage as a specialist teacher and consultant, the budget’s ‘scattergun’ approach does not yet guarantee the outcomes neurodivergent learners deserve. Where the government’s plan increases the quantity of support, Literacy Steps ensures quality, depth, and true inclusion. We provide:

  • Expertly trained staff with advanced knowledge of structured literacy and neurodevelopmental challenges.

  • Individualised, strengths-based programmes that employ trauma-informed, culturally responsive practice.

  • Family engagement and transparent goal-setting at every stage.

  • Proactive, not reactive, intervention—beyond “catch-up,” we pursue excellence and agency for every learner.


The budget’s model continues to emphasise band-aid approaches, remediating gaps and triaging crises rather than investing in sustainable, specialist growth. Staff in schools remain overburdened, roles are ambiguous, and professional development often fails to keep pace with real-world need, problems documented in my recent Masters paper and echoed in daily practice.


Reflection: The Case for Specialist, Business-Led Solutions

While Budget 2025 signals progress, it affirms the ongoing necessity for specialist, business-led tutoring services like Literacy Steps. Neurodivergent students find sustainable success not in broad allocation of hours or piecemeal interventions, but in intensive, targeted, and adaptive support. My practice demonstrates the value of professional expertise, holistic planning, and true partnership—delivering measurable, transformative growth well beyond what system-wide funding alone can achieve.


To champion neurodivergent learners in New Zealand, policymakers must look past headlines and invest in quality—empowering specialists, families, and young people themselves. Until then, business-led solutions remain the gold standard for true equity and lifelong literacy success.


References:


Comments

bottom of page