By Anthony Barich
The re-booted MySchool 2.0 website reveals the need for an ongoing commitment from government and education authorities to fund students with disabilities, Catholic Education WA director Ron Dullard said.
The site, launched on 4 March, reveals the high cost of educating students with disabilities, as education centres require significant recurrent income per student, Mr Dullard said.
Extra funding is also needed to help address the education outcomes for students, especially in the eight schools in remote Indigenous communities where the Catholic school is the only school, he said.
“Students with disabilities have access to a mainstream education in Catholic schools and so the real cost is not as easily identified within the individual school data,” Mr Dullard said.
“An ongoing commitment from governments and education authorities to funding for these students, regardless of the sector in which they attend, will be a significant step forward in improving the educational outcomes for this group of students.”
While he applauded having this information available to parents, he said Catholic Education is concerned that “this small window into each school” may be used as the sole basis for judging schools.
“The reality is that important aspects of our school communities such as religion, pastoral care, sense of belonging and diversity are not reflected on the MySchool website,” he said.
“I also have no doubt that there will be particular comparisons made between schools that will result in much time being spent explaining variances when the time should more productively be used in providing a better education for our students.”
National Catholic Education Commission chair Therese Temby, the former Catholic Education WA director, said the financial data on the site and the Australian Government’s current Review of Funding for Schooling will help clarify the facts about the amount of government funding received by Catholic schools.
Australian schools, both government and non-government, are funded differentially by governments, both Commonwealth and State/Territory. Notwithstanding, all sources of income, including private sources and funds accrued from fundraising, have been included in the calculations, she said.
Federal Education Minister Peter Garrett said the financial data would help shape his planned overhaul of funding for public and private schools.