Education Minister Erica Stanford said the government was developing a plan to build cost-effective classrooms so it could deliver more of them, rather than what she described as very expensive bespoke blocks. She blamed cost blowouts on "fancy architects" and one-off designs, and said about 20 major projects covering more than 100 classrooms had been paused for rescoping. RNZ reported some schools, such as Ashburton College, were left waiting, and principal Simon Coleman cited poor communication from the Ministry.

Budget 2024 allocated $1.48 billion over four years to build new schools and classrooms and upgrade existing ones, part of a wider $2.9b education package. The Ministry of Education said the property spend would deliver up to 8,000 student places, including roughly 300 roll-growth classrooms and up to four new schools. CTU chief economist Craig Renney argued the wider Budget was not delivering enough to meet cost pressures while funding had been found for tax cuts.

A Ministerial Inquiry led by former National minister Murray McCully, released on 4 October 2024, found the Ministry's management of the roughly $30 billion school property portfolio was a "lose-lose-lose" for schools, the Ministry and taxpayers. It reported minor projects needing two months of work taking two years to approve, offsite-manufactured builds costing over $1.2m per teaching space, and a lack of transparency in how projects were prioritised. It recommended a new independent entity take over school property; Stanford said the government had inherited a struggling system.

Stanford announced on 16 July 2025 that the government would stop building open-plan classrooms, saying large open spaces were too noisy and distracting, and favouring single-cell rooms with closable glass doors. At the same time the government said standardised designs and offsite builds had cut the average classroom cost by 28%, from $1.2m to $620,000, enabling about 30% more classrooms in 2024 than 2023. Newsroom noted NZ Council for Educational Research surveys found most teachers in modern learning environments rated them positively, contradicting the Minister's claim of overwhelmingly negative feedback.

On 17 October 2025 Stanford announced $100 million reinvested from lower building costs would fund 82 new classrooms across multiple schools plus a new primary/intermediate school in Pokeno, Waikato, with the largest allocations to Cashmere High School (14 classrooms) and Papatoetoe High School (12 classrooms). RNZ reported the funding sat within a wider $713m Budget allocation for school buildings, and that money freed up by cheaper construction was being redirected to high-growth areas.

Announcing a further $2 billion in school infrastructure on 4 May 2026, Stanford and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop said the government delivered 583 classrooms in 2025, which they described as 31% more than in 2023, crediting greater use of offsite-manufactured builds and repeatable designs. They said Budgets 2024 and 2025 had increased school maintenance funding by $880 million, and announced $56.6m for redevelopments at six schools totalling 52 teaching spaces, with work to begin within six months.

Reaction is mixed: supporters welcome cheaper, faster classrooms and the return of walls, while teachers, principals and some parents question whether the savings are real, whether single-cell rooms suit every school, and who pays to convert existing open-plan spaces.

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