Teachers are calling their situation a "crisis in education" and are disappointed at the failure of the Government to address it after today’s Budget announcement.
After 50,000 teachers walked off the job yesterday they were back in class today, feeling deflated.
Hastings Intermediate Principal Perry Rush says the concerns teachers have were not addressed at all in the Budget announcement.
"There will be a lot of really upset teachers around the country today," he says.
"I can’t see anything in the Budget that addresses specifically, the claims made within this current round."
Instead, the Government is focusing on construction, announcing $1.2 billion dollars will be spent over the next decade on building new schools and classrooms.
However, Education Minister, Chris Hipkins, says there were other issues to consider.
"There are a lot of big and expensive issues to deal with in the education portfolio and what the teaching community and parent community will see is that we are ticking things off progressively as we go along," he says.
The Government says it's the largest ever investment in school property in order to deal with a growth in population for the long term.
But schools 1 NEWS spoke to today say their concerns have not been addressed in this budget.
Unions also agree the Budget has failed the sector.
And while they are welcoming the Government's property investment, increases for operations, and previously announced initiatives to attract staff, they say it's just not enough.
"We needed to see more that will actually keep our teachers in our schools, we needed to see far more support for our early childhood education," says NZEI president, Lynda Stuart.
With the Budget falling short of for the teachers, more strike action for secondary school’s has been announced for next week.
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