A $20 million upgrade for the Ministry of Education is being blasted as an insult to teachers.

The head office revamp includes a budget of $3000 of furniture per person.

Labour's education spokesperson Chris Hipkins said the money would be better spent elsewhere.

"That's going to stick in the craw of people working in cold leaky miserable school conditions, when the government aren't fronting up with the money to get those schools up to scratch."

In 2015 leaky buildings at schools were in the spotlight, with the NZ Herald reporting horrific conditions at Northland College in Kaikohe, with damp leaky buildings.

Later that year a list of dozens of schools needing urgent repairs was produced, and Finance Minister Bill English admitted the number of schools needing the repairs could be up to 60.  

Hipkins said the Ministry of Education revamp is the same wasteful spending that was seen at MBIE.

"After all of the controversy around MBIE's upgrade you would think the government would be going to some lengths to ensure they didn't repeat that."

"In fact they've actually gone one step further on this, spending more money."