The National Catholic Education Commission welcomes the commitment by the Labor Party in last night’s Federal Budget reply to restore the level of funding for schools originally proposed by the Gillard Labor Government.

The NCEC’s acting executive director Ray Collins said the changes to school funding introduced by the Turnbull government are having a serious impact on more than 500 Catholic schools across Australia.

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Catholic school communities expecting significant initiatives addressing the concerns raised with the Federal Minister for Education Simon Birmingham and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull would be disappointed with last night’s budget.

Whilst Senator Birmingham has promised the government will respond to the Independent Report of the Review into the Socio-economic Status Score methodology from the National School Resourcing Board later this year, there is little in the budget that details how the government will address this, and the other “landmark” reviews the government has received this year.

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The National Catholic Education Commission welcomes the report of the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools, Through Growth to Achievement, released by the Australian Government today.

The NCEC’s acting executive director Ray Collins says, while there is a need to look at the report in further detail, the wide-ranging report appears consistent with the submissions lodged by Catholic education entities, takes into account current educational research and thinking, and responds to the key challenges being faced by Australian schools and systems.

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Hints of a “Santa Claus” budget from Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison will have education authorities from across all sectors hopeful that fresh funds will be allocated to the nation’s schools to tackle the shortcomings in the current arrangements announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Education Minister Simon Birmingham less than 12 months ago.

Acting executive director of the National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC), Ray Collins, said members of Australia’s more than 1700 Catholic school communities will be “closely watching next month’s budget to see whether the Turnbull government is serious about tackling their concerns over allocation of funds, and fair and accurate measures of parental ‘capacity to contribute’ in the Gonski 2.0 funding model”.

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The National Catholic Education Commission welcomes the report of the Independent review into Regional, Rural and Remote Education undertaken by Dr John Halsey, Emeritus Professor, Flinders University.

The NCEC’s acting executive director Ray Collins said the report took into account the views of key stakeholders including submissions from the Catholic sector.

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The National Catholic Education Commission has published a resource to support the teaching of religious education in Catholic Schools in response to the changing social, church and educational landscapes.

Endorsed by the Bishops Commission for Catholic Education and prepared by Catholic educators across the country, the Framing Paper: Religious Education in Australian Catholic Schools, aims to support individual dioceses to reflect on and evaluate their religious education curriculum and teaching practice.

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The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) seeks to clarify its position in light of the recent coverage regarding Catholic sector funding.

The acting executive director Ray Collins said the NCEC has stressed repeatedly that school funding is a matter of concern for all schools, not just Catholic schools.

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The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) welcomes the Australian Labor Party’s declaration of support for open, accessible, faith-based education as a fundamental part of its policy platform in the lead up to the next federal election.

Acting Executive Director of the NCEC, Mr Ray Collins particularly welcomed Labor’s commitment to ensuring that the right of parents to choose the type of education their children receive is supported by governments.

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The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) has welcomed the Federal Opposition’s promise, if elected, to establish a $280 million independent education research institute to ensure evidenced-based practice in Australian schools.

The NCEC’s acting executive director, Ray Collins said Labor’s policy is a step in the right direction.

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The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC), which met yesterday, remains committed to working with Minister Birmingham, the Federal Government, and the independent and government school sectors to ensure a fair distribution of funds for schools and school systems is achieved.

Acting executive director Ray Collins said “the NCEC has, over the years, enjoyed a positive working relationship with the independent sector and will continue to dialogue with them on an appropriate funding mechanism for non-government schools”.

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Ray Collins has been appointed as the Acting Executive Director of the National Catholic Education Commission following the resignation of Christian Zahra for family reasons on 18 January 2018.

Commencing today, Ray will serve in this position until a new Executive Director is appointed.

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The Executive Director of the National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) Christian Zahra said Catholic education leaders will work with Church leadership to review and respond to the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

“Children’s safety at school is paramount and our education leaders are committed to ensuring the wellbeing and safety of all children in Catholic schools.”

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The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) says the 2017 NAPLAN report helps to paint a small part of a much larger picture of learning and teaching in Australian schools, but we shouldn’t get carried away with the data.

NCEC executive director Christian Zahra said while NAPLAN is a helpful diagnostic tool for teachers and school leaders to assess the performance of individual students and schools in literacy and numeracy, we will do a disservice to schools by comparisons on such narrow measures of learning.

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The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) welcomes the Federal Government’s decision to ensure educational bodies are not sued for online copyright infringements by their staff and students.

NCEC Executive Director Christian Zahra said the extension of these protections - known as ‘safe harbours’ - meant that schools and other educational bodies who provide internet access would no longer face the threat of penalties if staff or students illegally downloaded copyrighted material such as films and music.

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National Catholic Education Commission executive director Christian Zahra says new analysis of the Turnbull Government’s school funding model shows that despite assurances of a “consistent” approach to non-government schools, Catholic systemic schools will be disadvantaged by $1.1 billion over the next decade because of inconsistent treatment of those schools.

“When announcing his new 10-year school funding model, Minister Birmingham outlined his vision for how schools would be funded,” Mr Zahra explained.

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