Opposition leader Luke Foley was sceptical about the schools investment, calling it "a mere drop in the ocean". "We see a government that in its first budget cut $270 million from school capital, put back a fraction of that today and do a lap of honour," he said. "Wentworth Point Public School has been announced for the sixth budget in a row, they haven't turned a sod. "We see a need for an additional 300,000 school places over the next 15 years; today's initiative is a mere drop in the ocean." His criticism was echoed by the Greens' education spokesman David Shoebridge who said "any increase in public school infrastructure funding is welcome, but this budget provides less than a third of what is needed".

"Even if the Baird government continues to spend at this rate it will see public schools with a $7.2 billion shortfall, and thousands of public school kids without a school or classroom." NSW Teachers Federation Deputy President Gary Zadkovich​ agreed the investment did not go far enough. "We believe it will still fall short of accommodating the 23 per cent increase in public school enrolments projected over the next 15 years," he said. While many of the new schools are in Liberal electorates in the city's north and north-west, including the Treasurer's seat of Willoughby, the Treasurer said the decision was made based purely on demand. "The schools that receive the funding are the ones most in need," Ms Berejiklian said, foreshadowing more announcements about new schools and upgrades in coming months. The Treasurer is also promising to double the spend on the schools maintenance backlog to $330 million over the next two years in an attempt to bring the growing list of schools' repairs under control. However, the Auditor-General reported late last year that more than double that figure, $732 million, would be needed to fix the maintenance backlog and Mr Foley pointed out the backlog grew by $195 million last year alone.

Gonski needs-based funding continues in 2016-17, with $367 million from state coffers for government schools. But the state-Commonwealth commitment to the National Education Reform Agreement (the Gonski needs-based funding model) ends in 2019, after which additional funding arrangements are uncertain. Ms Berejiklian said the future of education funding arrangements and the state's share of GST were part of an "ongoing discussion" with the federal government that would continue at next year's COAG meeting. The budget also gave a 5 per cent funding boost to non-government schools, taking total state funding to $1.2 billion. The department of education has a $13.7 billion total budget for 2016-17, up by $950 million or 7.5 per cent on last year.

Early childhood education misses out While the budget contained $382 million for early childhood education, including $150 million to support public preschool access, critics within the sector point out that the government has consistently under-spent its early childhood budget. The Auditor-General reported last year that since 2011–12, $350 million less has been spent than was budgeted for early childhood education. "This budget does little to reassure us that the NSW Government is serious about ensuring every child in NSW has access to a high quality preschool education," said Diane Lawson from the Community Child Care Cooperative. NSW spends the lowest amount of any state per child on early childhood education. "A 14 per cent increase in funding to early childhood education and care is a step in the right direction but we know too many children in NSW are missing out on the best possible start in life as investment in early childhood education and care fails to reach the most vulnerable," said Tracy Howe from the NSW Council of Social Services.

TAFE 'under attack' In 2016-17 the government will fund an extra 50,000 enrolments in vocational education and training across the state, up from 500,000. The amount of "contestable" public money available to private VET providers is increasing from $526 million spent in 2015/16 to $786 million in 2016/17; while TAFE underspent its 2015-16 budget by $269 million, and the cut in its forecast budget for 2016/17 is $175 million. Mr Zadkovich said "the bad news is the Baird government continues to cut investment in TAFE and set about the dismantling of the NSW TAFE system through its privatisation policies." Mr Shoebridge said "the Coalition's ideological attack on TAFE continues in this budget with $175 million slashed from the budget that TAFE was allocated last year". "Smart and Skilled has been nothing short of a disaster for NSW TAFE which lost more than 104,000 students between 2014 and 2015."