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Canberra’s top mum has argued Catholic school funding cuts will disproportionately hurt Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and organised two forums to mobilise the ACT’s Indigenous community against the proposed changes.
Funding for ACT Catholic schools will reduce by 0.8 per cent between 2018 and 2027 if a new federal government funding formula is voted through the senate.
The ACT Catholic Education Office has come out strongly against the changes and warned of fee increases of up to $5000 a year at some Canberra schools.
ACT Barnados Mother of the Year Selina Walker has organised two public information evenings – one in the north, one in the south – to inform Canberra’s Indigenous Catholic school parents of the impact of the proposed new formula.
Catholic schools were sanctuaries against racism for vulnerable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, the Wanniassa foster mum said.
“Aboriginal people don’t only go to Catholic education to get a better education, some of them are escaping bullying that never got dealt with in mainstream schools,” Ms Walker said.
“Essentially the federal government is taking away our choice yet again.”
The new funding formula promises to scrap deals made with schools and systems throughout the nation in favour of a single needs-based model.
ACT Catholic schools, formerly funded to a socioeconomic score of 101, will now receive per-student funding based on the government’s calculations of actual need.
The Catholic system and some independent schools have argued the ACT is unfairly affected under needs-based funding formulas because of the spread of public and private housing throughout the territory.
Ms Walker said there was a misconception that Catholic school parents were better off than families who sent their children to public schools.
The number of Indigenous children receiving a Catholic education in Canberra has risen almost 30 per cent since 2013, rising from 238 students to 306.
More than half are in primary schools, though the vast majority of indigenous children in the ACT are in the public system.
“It’s your everyday people who have simple jobs that make a way to pay the fees so that their kid gets a leg up and their kid gets an education,” Ms Walker said.
Catholic Education Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn director Ross Fox wrote to parents this week to contrast proposed funding increases for public schools with cuts to Catholic schools.
“If the policy passes the parliament Catholic schools in Canberra will particularly suffer from a significant reduction to funding by the Turnbull Government – estimated to be a cut equal to a third of current funding,” he said.
“I do not think that the funding model is fair for parents in all schools.”
Responding to an interview in which original Gonski review panellist Ken Boston welcomed the federal government’s proposed funding model, federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham said: “It delivers fair, sector-blind, needs-based funding to Australian schools, because it is a truer implementation of the original Gonski report than what Labor put in place.”
“We’re putting $18.6 billion of additional investment into Australian schools, but ensuring that it will be distributed fairly according to need.”
The forums for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic school parents will be held on Monday, June 19, from 6 to 7.30pm at St Thomas Aquinas School in Charnwood, and on Wednesday, June 21, at St Anthony’s Primary in Wanniassa from 6 to 7.30pm.
Article Courtesy: Canberra Times
Emily Baker Photo: Sitthixay Ditthavong
June 14 2017