Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan wants to see students getting back to their normal education routines by the end of May, as Australia continues to flatten the coronavirus curve.
But he’s faced pushback from the state governments and private school bodies.
Tehan has now written to the independent schools’ peak body and the National Catholic Education Commission offering an early payment of a quarter of the annual funding due to them in July.
He said if the schools commit to having their physical campus open for term two for those students who can’t learn from home, they can get 12.5 per cent of their money – a total of almost $1.7 billion – on May 21.
Schools must also have a plan to fully reopen classrooms at the start of June.
The same amount would be paid on June 9 if at least half their students are back in regular classroom-based learning from June 1.
The idea is to give schools a cash boost to help them cope with the health crisis, while also giving them an incentive to end learning from home.
