The National Catholic Education Commission says an Australian Education Union report on school infrastructure funding is a poor characterisation of figures, which advances sector division and undermines the whole of the Australian education system.
NCEC executive director Jacinta Collins said the report undermines the hard work and sacrifice of thousands of Australian families who contribute to the capital costs of their child’s school.
“Catholic families contribute 90 per cent of the funds used for capital in our schools, the remaining 10 per cent from state and federal government grants are targeted to growth areas and lower socio-economic communities”, Ms Collins said.
The NCEC said the report “cherry-picks examples to serve a political agenda, using terms like ‘elite’ and ‘prestige’ to characterise non-government schools”.
The majority of Catholic schools are low-fee and provide education across a diverse range of postcodes, socio-economic backgrounds and family circumstances.
The report highlights, for example, St Mary’s Cathedral College Sydney, which is neither elite nor high fee – a fact attested by the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who studied at the school – with fee relief alongside First Nations students who had come from local government schools.
The NCEC said the report also “completely distorts the nature of recurrent government funding” by implying that schools “reallocate recurrent funds” to capital projects.
As ACARA explains, under the Australian Education Act 2013, an approved authority for a non-government school must not use government recurrent funding for the purchase of land or buildings for the school, the construction of a building, or part of a building, for the school, capital improvements for the school, any form of loan, credit facility, or other interest in relation to the above.
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,” Ms Collins said.
“These funds are used to ensure our schools continue to deliver the quality Catholic education that millions of students (one in five) have experienced across Australia for over 200 years.”
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