OCEANIA/AUSTRALIA - Catholic Schools appreciated for quality education and lower cost

Sydney (Agenzia Fides) - Catholic Schools are still highly appreciated in Australia not only for traditional quality education but also for more reasonable fees in some parts of the vast country. Community and parent groups in Victoria recently confirmed the quality of Catholic education aimed at all round cultural and human and moral formation of the pupil. The groups also found that some Catholics schools were cheaper than the state system.
According to a survey in South Australia 70% of families prefer to send their children to Catholic schools despite slightly higher fees. The Bishops Commission for Catholic Education said Catholic institutes of education “try to keep costs down but school fees depend on how much the individual state governments are putting into education”.
It should be noted that the quality of instruction draws Australian families regardless of religious beliefs: in fact about one quarter of Catholic school pupils in Queensland are non Catholics. What families like about Catholic schools is seriousness, qualified teaching corps, structures and above all baggage of moral values which the schools strive to teach and put into practice.
The first Catholic school in Australia was opened in 1820. Today the country has about 1,700 Catholic schools of all grades with over 640,000 pupils and 40,000 teachers. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 29/1/2007 righe 26 parole 269)