• increased capital funding
• more resources for early childhood education
• religious freedom in schools

In 2017, Catholic school communities funded almost 90 per cent of the capital works in their schools – nearly $1.3 billion – while the federal and state governments jointly provided $152.2 million across our 1746 schools. To put this in perspective, the NSW government is spending 10 times this amount - $1.5 billion each year - on capital works in its 2200 schools. Please feel free to download the flyers in this newsletter to continue to inform Catholic school parents of the facts about funding of Catholic schools. 

The promises prior the election by the Federal Government were:

With the rising cost of land, construction and classroom technology, Catholic schools cannot continue to rely on parents and the rest of the school community to shoulder the burden of increased capital costs to the same extent into the future.

The federal government must honor their promises to help to ease the burden on parents if Catholic schools are to meet the needs of future students.

It seems the federal government are able to now move ahead with their promises with the first step being to reach agreement with each of the state governments.
As recent as this week, the Victorian Labor Government has signed the school funding agreement to secure certainty in the funding of non-government schools. They were the last state government to sign the agreement so this provides Catholic school parents with much relief that Catholic schools will remain an affordable choice for many families.

Catholic Education is increasing its focus on the delivery of early childhood education, a vital component of each child’s development. Catholic schools are well placed to meet this need, with many new preschools being built next to existing and new Catholic primary schools. This will make life easier for families with young children and puts our preschoolers at the heart of our school communities.

Catholic Education will seek a significant increase in dedicated capital and recurrent funding to deliver quality early learning centres for our families.

While school funding arrangements have now largely been settled for the next decade, Catholic Education will seek to clarify details on key elements, particularly around maintaining the choice of low-fee Catholic schooling for Australian families.

Catholic Education ran a campaign prior to the election and sought formal responses from the major parties to several questions regarding their education policies to ensure parents were fully informed of the impact of who they might vote for.

CSPV participated in an online education forum where we had the opportunity to ask then Shadow Education Minister, Tanya Plibersek questions about their policies in education.

CSPV congratulate the Liberal/National Parties for their recent victory and hope they continue to collaborate and listen to the voices of Catholic school parents who contribute greatly to the education of children throughout Australia.