Parties lay out education policies ahead of election

Funding, equality and international students are hot topics as New Zealand goes to the polls

Ahead of New Zealand’s general election on 17 October, all the major parties have spoken up on education funding reform and the vexed issue of opening the border to international students.

In a public forum on 6 October, the Tertiary Education Union said that parties should prioritise funding and race and gender equality issues. Education minister Chris Hipkins (pictured) told the forum that he intended to keep increasing funding for higher education, claiming that the previous government had run the system down.