Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says the further funding to complete the Christchurch Schools Rebuild programme announced today is a big milestone.
He confirmed today a further $301 million was being earmarked for Christchurch schools as part of the ongoing earthquake recovery, to complete building, rebuilding or refurbishing of 115 schools within the next two years.
With 81 schools' construction already complete, today's announcement brings government funding for the Christchurch Schools Rebuild to $1.6 billion since 2013.
Hipkins said work on 27 of the remaining schools was already under way, with five in planning and design stages and two yet to enter the programme.
"As Education Minister I have had the absolute privilege of seeing new schools open, built from scratch or restored around Christchurch over the past five years," he said.
"This is a city that went through so much in 2010 and 2011. Especially now, following Cyclone Gabrielle and the devastation that has caused across the North Island, it is incredibly heartening to see how far Christchurch has come since then."
Hipkins said this final instalment of funding was a big milestone.
He expected this would be the final amount of funding but you "never say never", he said.
The government had been "quite conservative in the way we've funded the rebuild programme", he said.
Christchurch central MP Duncan Webb and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins are given a tour of the rebuild work at Heaton Normal Intermediate School by students George Thompson, Alex Binnie and principal James Griggs on 3 March, 2023. Photo: RNZ / Rachel Graham
Heaton Normal Intermediate School, where Hipkins was speaking this afternoon, was one of the schools which still needed work.
"We've learned a lot, it's been probably the biggest school rebuild and renovation programme we've ever undertaken in New Zealand's history, some of the schools ended up needing more work to bring them up to standard and to give them the type of quality learning environment we want all of our kids and teachers to be able to have."
On Friday, the school celebrated the opening of the first set of new classrooms, with Hipkins doing the ribbon-cutting honours.
Heaton Normal Intermediate School principal James Griggs said after 10 years in earthquake-damaged classrooms, it was great to be in state-of-the-art rooms.
"Classrooms which are warm dry, healthy, acoustically sound, where lighting has been considered, oxygen levels have been considered, when all those things have been considered in a classroom, and also just having a more a pleasant learning environment, it will make a huge difference for our students."
Following the Christchurch earthquake, the government at the time initially said it would close 13 schools and merge 18. In the end, nine schools were closed and 15 schools merged.
The Ministry of Education later apologised to Christchurch schools for flaws in the process.
Watch the press conference with the PM here.
Hipkins said the experience in Christchurch will provide some lessons for rebuilding in the North Island after Cyclone Gabrielle.
"There's been some significant damage to some of the schools and so we will be able to draw on the lessons from the Christchurch experience and making sure that we're getting those schools back up and running as quickly as possible first and foremost, but then also rebuilding so that they're resilient and sustainable and providing the kind of learning environment that we would want them to have in the future."
"I certainly think some of those very early lessons about the damage that can be done to community cohesion when you try and push through an amalgamation process right in the heart of an emergency response, we certainly wouldn't be trying that in any other part of the country.
"There are lessons just in the way we managed the construction process. We've moved to more sort of standardised designs here because we know that we can build them faster and cheaper if we stick to similar designs and we can also iron out some of the difficulties that we've had in the past with things like leaky buildings by not having a whole lot of bespoke designs for different schools."
