Dan Tehan 'confident’ states will back Catholic schools funding deal
FEDERAL Education Minister Dan Tehan says all states and territories will agree to the new Catholic school funding deal, as the NSW government threatens to disrupt the arrangement.
National
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FEDERAL Education Minister Dan Tehan says he is “confident” all states and territories will agree to the Federal Government’s new Catholic school funding deal.
His comments come after NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes said the Morrison government is pitting public against private in a return to the “school funding wars of the past” and vowed he won’t sign a deal that isn’t fair to all schools and students.
Mr Tehan plans to meet with his NSW counterpart this week to smooth out concerns over the agreement, which will see non-state schools receive $3.2 billion over a decade, including $1.1 billion in the next four years.
Mr Tehan today conceded NSW have the ability to disrupt the deal if they choose to but he was confident he would get their support.
“They could if they want to. We pay our share to state schools, to Catholic schools and independent schools through the NSW government,” Mr Tehan told the ABC’s Insiders program.
He added: “But I think all states and territories would agree that we don’t want to make school kids pay the price for our discussions. So I’m very confident that I’ll be able to have very meaningful discussions with the NSW government and all the other state and territory governments.”
The minister said he had already received a heads up from two governments that they were keen to bring negotiations to a close.
“As a matter of fact on Friday I had one of the Labor states reach out to me and say they’re ready to negotiate and they want to get on with it very quickly,” Mr Tehan told Insiders.
“There’s another territory government that is looking forward to us progressing our bilateral negotiations and getting them done very quickly.”
Mr Tehan said the Commonwealth was injecting record funding into NSW state schools.
“The funding from the Commonwealth going to NSW state schools is at a higher percentage than it is to independent and Catholic schools,” he said.
The school funding deal includes an additional $1.2 billion mechanism, called the Choice and Affordability Fund, to “provide a flexible means to target extra support for those schools in the non-government sector that require extra support”.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison cited underperforming schools and those in regional areas as examples of those which could benefit from the fund.
He promised he would also deliver “record levels” of funding to government schools, rising from $7.3 billion this year to $13.7 billion in 2029.
“For students, this will mean the opportunity to get the best results from school. For parents, it will mean that choice remains affordable. For teachers, it will mean the certainty of having funding so they can get on with the job,” the PM said during the announcement this week.