The Australian Education Union (AEU) report on school infrastructure funding undermines the hard work and sacrifice of thousands of Australian families who contribute to the capital costs of their child’s school, the outgoing Executive Director of the National Catholic Education Commission, Jacinta Collins, has said.
“Yet again, (this is) a poor characterisation of figures which advances sector division and undermines the whole of the Australian education system,” she added.
“Catholic families contribute 90% of the funds used for capital in our schools, the remaining 10% from state and government grants are targeted to growth areas and lower socio-economic communities.”
Responding to the report, the NCEC said it cherry picks examples to serve a political agenda, using terms like ‘elite’ and ‘prestige’ to characterise non-government schools. The majority of Catholic schools, it said, are low fee and provide education across a diversity of postcodes, socio-economic advantage and family circumstance.
“The report highlights, for example, St Marys Cathedral College Sydney, which is neither elite nor high fee, a fact attested by the Prime Minister himself, having studied with fee relief alongside First Nations students who had come from local government schools,” the NCEC said.
“It also completely distorts the nature of recurrent government funding by implying that schools ‘reallocate recurrent funds’ to capital projects.”
The NCEC explained that Catholic schools receive capital funding principally from parents through fees with a small contribution in the form of grants from the commonwealth and state governments. Government schools receive capital funding principally from their state government.
“Catholic schools work exceptionally hard with their communities to be prudent financial stewards of the funds which come from government, other income and overwhelmingly from parent contributions. These funds are used to ensure our schools continue to deliver the quality Catholic education that millions of students (1 in 5) have experienced across Australia for over 200 years,” Ms Collins said.