NZEI Te Riu Roa welcomes gov’s education spending sig

<h3>NZEI Te Riu Roa has welcomed a statement from Finance Minister Grant Robertson that the Government is set to make &&num;8220&semi;record investments&&num;8221&semi; in education&period;<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>The Finance Minister signalled the spending while announcing a &dollar;7&period;5b surplus in the year to June earlier today&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>NZEI Te Riu Roa National Secretary Paul Goulter says that while the union has settled large collective agreements across primary&comma; intermediate and area schools this year&comma; there are still significant parts of the education sector that are severely underfunded and in need of government attention&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Our top priorities are fixing the pay gap in early childhood education&comma; and a pay equity settlement for teacher aides&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s heartening to hear from Government that they see education spending as a priority&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Now it&&num;8217&semi;s a matter of us pushing to see that increase in funding as soon as possible so that we can properly value the people working in those areas&comma;&&num;8221&semi; he said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;