The Government’s confused spending priorities in education have created the conditions for the planned strike by Ministry of Education psychologists, National’s Education spokesperson Paul Goldsmith says.

“Every school has been reporting the pressure that has been building in dealing with students with learning or behavioural difficulties.

“There just aren’t enough resources to deal with the scale of the problem.

“But for all its talk about supporting children, this Government has prioritised $700 million over the next four years for a loosely targeted free school lunches programme.

“Everyone likes a free lunch, and for a small group it may be justified, but it is a warped priority especially given the pressures in our education system elsewhere.

“We have kids not turning up, our maths education is a mess and we have no robust measurement of progress for whether children are learning or not.

“The Government needs to start paying more attention to what’s happening in our schools.”