The National Catholic Education Commission is calling on Catholic school parents to consider how their vote in the May 3 federal election will impact their child’s education.
In calling the election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese MP highlighted a number of key issues for Catholic education, including school choice and “fair funding for every school”.
National Catholic Education executive director Jacinta Collins said Catholic education will focus on these issues as well as ensuring Catholic schools can continue to operate and teach as faith-based schools, support disadvantaged students, student mental health and wellbeing, address teacher workforce issues, and building and innovating for the future.
“We have a two-pronged approach under the banner, “Catholic education benefits all Australians”, which highlights the value of Catholic schools to the community through educational excellence, serving disadvantaged students, building educational infrastructure, and saving billions of dollars for taxpayers,” Ms Collins said.
“At the same time, we will draw attention to our key priorities with both sitting members and candidates.”
In summary, the priorities are:
- Ensure affordability and choice
- Address hardship, wellbeing and disadvantage
- Build and innovate for the future
Ms Collins said the election campaign falling during the Easter school holiday and ANZAC day period and with the increasing preference for early voting, it is critical for school communities to communicate with their families and staff ahead of the election.
“We will ask school principals and our parent associations to send home our two-page document that highlights Catholic education priorities for the election,” Ms Collins said.
“We will also seek responses from the major parties, the Greens and the independent candidates on these priorities and make a scorecard available so families and staff can more easily identify whether their candidates support Catholic education.”
More information about the election will be available via the NCEC’s website.
FULL STORY
Federal Election on 3 May – what you need to know to support your local Catholic school (NCEC)
