Sydney, Australia, Sep 21, 2018 / 12:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A $4.6 billion funding package for Catholic and independent schools in Australia has won the support of a national Catholic education group, which says the plan corrects key flaws from the previous funding model.
“Families can only have school choice if there is an affordable alternative to free, comprehensive government schools,” said Ray Collins, acting executive director of the National Catholic Education Commission.
“If the only option is a high-fee school, choice is restricted to those parents rich enough to afford high fees.”
The National Catholic Education Commission has given its full support to the new funding package, announced Thursday by Prime Minister Scott Morrison. The plan includes $3.2 billion to fund non-government schools through a new model over the next decade. It also includes a $1.2 billion “choice and affordability fund” to support rural and drought-affected schools and other schools that require extra aid.
Morrison stressed the importance of school choice, while also reiterating a commitment to government schools, which will receive increased funding, from $7.3 billion this year to $13.7 billion in 2029, according to The Guardian.
The plan replaces a controversial 2107 funding model, which had been criticized for its geographically-based methodology of determining how much funding each non-government school required. This process, Collins said, “was flawed because it assumed all families from the same neighborhood were equally wealthy.” Many Catholic schools argued that their students often came from less-wealthy families in wealthier neighborhoods.
“Hundreds of primary schools would have been forced to double or triple their fees because of the previous model’s very narrow interpretation of ‘need’. This would have rendered those schools unaffordable to most Australian families, denying them the schooling choice that has been available in those areas for decades,” Collins said.
The new plan will calculate a school’s financial data based on parental income collected from tax information rather than geographical census data.
Collins said that while a few technical questions with the 2017 school funding model must still be resolved, the new plan goes a long way toward making Catholic schools a viable option for all Australians.
According to the National Catholic Education Commission, one in five Australian students attends a Catholic school, for a total of some 765,000 students in 1741 schools.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong. / Yung Chi Wai Derek/Shutterstock.
Denver Newsroom, Aug 11, 2022 / 14:12 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Joseph Zen is set to stand trial next month, along with four other people, in connection to his role … […]
A Lebanese Catholic priest has asked believers around the world to pray for the people of his country, after two explosions in Beirut injured hundreds of people and are reported to have left at least 10 people dead.
“We ask your nation to carry Lebanon in its hearts at this difficult stage and we place great trust in you and in your prayers, and that the Lord will protect Lebanon from evil through your prayers,” Fr. Miled el-Skayyem of the Chapel of St. John Paul II in Keserwan, Lebanon, said in a statement to EWTN News Aug. 4.
“We are currently going through a difficult phase in Lebanon, as you can see on TV and on the news,” the priest added.
Raymond Nader, a Maronite Catholic living in Lebanon, echoed the priest’s call.
“I just ask for prayers now from everyone around the world. We badly need prayers,” Nader told CNA Tuesday.
Explosions in the port area of Lebanon’s capital overturned cars, shattered windows, set fires, and damaged buildings across Beirut, a city of more than 350,000, with a metro area of more than 2 million people.
“It was a huge disaster over here and the whole city was almost ruined because of this explosion and they’re saying it’s kind of a combination of elements that made this explosion,” Antoine Tannous, a Lebanese journalist, told CNA Tuesday.
Officials have not yet determined the cause of the explosions, but investigators believe they may have started with a fire in a warehouse that stored explosive materials. Lebanon’s security service warned against speculations of terrorism before investigators could assess the situation.
According to Lebanon’s state-run media, hundreds of injured people have flooded hospital emergency rooms in the city.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab has declared that Wednesday will be a national day of mourning. The country is almost evenly divided between Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and Chrsitians, most of whom are Maronite Catholics. Lebanon also has a small Jewish population, as well as Druze and other religious communities.
Pope Francis speaks to religious leaders on the grounds of Indonesia’s national mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sept 5, 2024. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Jakarta, Indonesia, Sep 5, 2024 / 00:13 am (CNA).
Pope Francis visited the grounds of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque on Wednesday for an interfaith meeting in Indonesia, where he signed a joint declaration condemning religious-based violence with Muslim leader Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar.
The Istiqlal Joint Declaration 2024 is titled “Fostering Religious Harmony for the Sake of Humanity.”
Named for Indonesia’s national Istiqlal Mosque, the document calls for religious leaders to work together to promote human dignity, interreligious dialogue, and environmental protection.
“The values shared by our religious traditions should be effectively promoted in order to defeat the culture of violence,” the declaration says.
“Our religious beliefs and rituals have a particular capacity to speak to the human heart and thus foster a deeper respect for human dignity.”
Pope Francis arrives at Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia for an interreligious meeting on Sep. 5, 2024. Daniel Ibáñez / CNA
Pope Francis became the first pope to visit the grounds of Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque on Sept. 5. The massive mosque is among the largest in the world, accommodating up to 250,000 people at a time. John Paul II, who visited Indonesia in 1989, was the first pope to ever visit a mosque during his visit to Damascus in 2001.
According to the mosque’s grand imam, Istiqlal is second only in size to Mecca and Medina, and its influence extends to Indonesia’s roughly 242 million Muslims.
The interfaith meeting sought to promote religious tolerance and moderation in Indonesia, which faces challenges with the rise of hardline Islamist groups and instances of violence against Christians.
Speaking to representatives of Indonesia’s six officially recognized religions — Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Catholicism, and Protestantism — Pope Francis articulated his vision for interreligious dialogue.
“Sometimes we think that a meeting between religions is a matter of seeking common ground between different religious doctrines and beliefs no matter the cost. Such an approach, however, may end up dividing us, because the doctrines and dogmas of each religious experience are different,” the pope said.
“What really brings us closer is creating a connection in the midst of diversity, cultivating bonds of friendship, care and reciprocity.”
Pope Francis added that when religious leaders cultivate bonds, it enables them “to move forward together in pursuit of the same goals: defense of human dignity, the fight against poverty and the promotion of peace.”
Pope Francis arrived at the mosque through the Alfattah Gate, where Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar warmly greeted him. The two leaders then proceeded to the newly constructed “Tunnel of Friendship,” an underground passage connecting the mosque to Jakarta’s Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, built by the Indonesian government to foster dialogue and unity.
Before entering the “Tunnel of Friendship,” Pope Francis expressed his hope that it would become “a place of dialogue and encounter.”
Pope Francis told the grand imam, “I hope that our communities may increasingly be open to interreligious dialogue and be symbols of the peaceful coexistence that characterizes Indonesia.”
Representatives of Indonesia’s six officially recognized religions — Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Catholicism, and Protestantism — attend the interfaith meeting with Pope Francis and Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar on Sept. 5, 2024, in Jakarta, Indonesia. Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
´The interfaith event took place in a red and white tent on the mosque grounds. It unfolded with a traditional Muslim welcome dance known as Marawis, followed by a brief chanting of a passage from the Quran by an Indonesian woman and a reading from the Gospel of Luke.
Representatives of the other four recognized religions stood in solidarity as the declaration was read aloud to participants in the tent.
The Istiqlal document identifies dehumanization and climate change as two serious crises facing the world today, emphasizing the shared responsibility of religious communities in tackling global challenges. It also affirms the need for interreligious dialogue to resolve “local, regional and international conflicts, especially those incited by the abuse of religion.”
The joint declaration at the Indonesian mosque was reminiscent of the Abu Dhabi declaration on “Human Fraternity” that Pope Francis signed with Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of al-Azhar in the United Arab Emirates, when he became the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula in 2019.
On Thursday, the Indonesian grand imam underlined the significance of the meeting, pointing to Istiqlal Mosque’s influence across Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country.
As Indonesia’s only state mosque, the Istiqlal Mosque is “expected to provide guidance to more than one million mosques and prayer rooms scattered throughout the islands of the Republic of Indonesia,” he explained.
“This mosque also seeks to promote religious tolerance and moderation in Indonesia,” the Muslim leader underlined.
Pope Francis kisses the hand of Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar after the signing of the Istiqlal Joint Declaration on Sept. 5, 2024, in Jakarta, Indonesia. Daniel Ibáñez / CNA
In a moving gesture of solidarity and friendship at the closing of the event, the imam kissed Pope Francis on the head, while the pope kissed the grand imam’s hand and then touched it to his cheek.
Pope Francis will conclude the third day of his apostolic journey to Southeast Asia and Oceania by celebrating Holy Mass in Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta. On Friday he is expected to depart Indonesia for Papua New Guinea.
Leave a Reply