Building the Education Revolution – First Round National School Pride Funding

AISV, 6 April 2009

On Sunday 5 April 2009, The Hon Julia Gillard MP, the Australian Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, announced that 5965 schools across Australia would receive a total of $828.16 million for minor infrastructure and refurbishment projects under the first round of the National School Pride (NSP) funding provided through the Building the Education Revolution program.

165 independent schools in Victoria were successful in applying for NSP first round funds. This represents 75 per cent of the Victorian independent school sector.

Click here to access the full list of successful Victorian schools and their planned projects. The funds available to each school were based on their enrolment numbers in February 2009.

The Chief Executive of the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria, Ms Michelle Green, claimed that critics of non-government schools receiving funding under the NSP were ‘particularly mean-spirited’ and that ‘there are a whole range of projects. A lot of shade cloths and covering areas…and a lot of schools have water reclamation projects to make sure children have playing fields in drought-affected areas’. She indicated that all schools that received funding were stimulating the economy, that there were needy schools in all sectors and that all schools had the same opportunity to apply for funding.

Ms Green said that ‘I think that this Government should be congratulated for putting out this money this way. They put this money out quickly – they didn't put fences around the money other than to say that every school in Australia should benefit. The money will make sure that all schools get the funds they need, not necessarily to one school over another.’

Schools that did not receive funding in the first round will be eligible to receive funding under the second round. Applications for round two NSP funding close on 4 May 2009.

The $1.3 billion NSP program provides schools with up to $200,000 per school for minor infrastructure and school refurbishment projects. Many of the NSP projects will commence in April 2009.

 

 

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