Sydney Catholic schools have retreated from earlier warnings about potential $5000 fee rises resulting from changes to federal funding, with the diocese saying it now believes it can avoid large increases.
Dan White, the director of Catholic schools in the Sydney diocese, which runs 152 schools, told parents this week that "we can even out school fees across the system without a need for a massive increase in fees in the future if [Education Minister Simon Birmingham] ensures in the legislation that the Catholic system can keep distributing funds according to its own assessment of need", which Mr Birmingham has said will be the case in letters to Catholic school principals and parents.
The Broken Bay diocese, which runs 44 schools across Sydney's northern beaches and the NSW Central Coast, now appears to be the only Catholic body in NSW still warning parents about fee increases.
In a letter sent to parents this week, Broken Bay director of schools Peter Hamill warned the new funding model would have "devastating consequences for our local Catholic systemic schools in northern Sydney and the Northern Beaches".
"If the government does not shift its position, the largest fee increase is estimated to be $4991 (an increase of 73 per cent)," Mr Hamill told Fairfax Media.
"Each diocese is different. The diocese of Broken By runs a system of low-fee neighbourhood schools. It is in a challenging position because of the wide range of SES scores of our schools."
However, Mr White said the contradictory messages from different diocese could confuse parents.
"I've spoken to over 600 parents in the past two nights and they're worried about the potential for fee increases," Mr White said.
The Parramatta, Wollongong and Maitland-Newcastle dioceses have also been working to reassure parents that fees will be maintained at current levels.
Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham has stepped into the fray, sending letters directly to Catholic school parents warning them of "misinformation [being] spread about the changes, creating confusion about the impact on schools within Catholic systems".
"Commonwealth funding for students in the NSW Catholic system continues to grow - from an average of $8,767 per student in 2017, to an average of $12,522 in 2027 - the highest funding of any school sector in NSW," Mr Birmingham wrote.
Mr Birmingham told Fairfax Media: "The Catholic education system will retain their autonomy to allocate funding amongst their schools. There's no reason if the Catholic education systems want to maintain their current funding distribution models that they can't do that.
"The growth in overall Commonwealth funding to NSW Catholic schools means there should be no reason for school administrators to be putting up fees or scaring parents with those sorts of threats."
Mr Birmingham's comments are supported by the director of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, Michael Slattery, who told parents across his 54 schools that they "should not be alarmed by some of the reports that are inferring major increases in fees", in a letter sent earlier this month.
A spokesman for the Wollongong diocese, which covers 38 schools, said. "We don't see any particular need to increase fees.
"We're certainly not telling parents they need to be panicking."
Similarly, a spokesman for the Parramatta diocese, which manages 79 schools, said: "We feel a really strong responsibility to our families to make Catholic education affordable for everybody.
"In Western Sydney we've got a lot of families for whom those kind of fee increases are entirely unfeasible."
The Catholic Education Commission NSW, which manages the distribution of government funds to the dioceses, said through a spokesman that Broken Bay was affected most by the funding changes because it had the most schools in high socioeconomic areas, which are facing cuts under the new model.
However, director of the Grattan Institute's school education program Peter Goss criticised any push to keep fees low in wealthy areas.
"When we talk about need, the Australian public overwhelmingly supports a needs-based model because they see it as helping disadvantaged schools," Mr Goss said. "People don't see the need to keep fees low in well-off areas as a genuine need."
"Given the desire to allow any family who wants to send their child to a Catholic school to do so, that would be better achieved through bursaries for those students rather than keeping fees low across the board."
Mr Goss said the new funding model "is a big improvement on the current approach".
The Catholic schools sector appears to be moving towards broad support of the new funding plan, with the dioceses of Brisbane and Tasmania also speaking out against warnings of fee hikes.
However, the new plan is still being strongly opposed by the NSW government, the Labor opposition and a number of major public school bodies, who say the new funding plan includes a $1.8 billion funding cut for NSW schools over the next four years, compared to the existing Gonski agreement signed between the state and federal governments in 2013.
"If [Prime Minister Malcolm] Turnbull gets his way and terminates the NSW Agreement, he will be locking in the lower 2017 level of funding for the next ten years," NSW Teachers Federation President Maurie Mulheron said.
