The Australian Government announced the Reform Support Fund as part of the Quality Schools package to provide $200 million over five years from 2018 to 2022 for NGRBs to support the implementation of existing and new national policy initiatives and state-specific reforms in non-government schools. These initiatives will be reflected in the national and bilateral agreements between the Commonwealth and the states and territories.

The objective of the Reform Support Fund is to provide support for AISACT to assist the Independent schools they represent to implement agreed national and state-based reform initiatives. These agreed initiatives will reflect  national policy initiatives set out in the National School Reform Agreement, and the state reform actions set out in each state’s bilateral reform agreement with the Commonwealth.

The reform priorities for 2019 are:

(a)    Continuation of the following three national priorities from 2018:

–    quality assurance, moderation and support for the continued improvement of the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability

–    implementation of online delivery of the National Assessment program

–    improving governance and financial management practices in non-government schools.

(b)   State based initiatives as agreed in the relevant bilateral agreement

(c)    Local priorities where aligned broadly with the Quality Schools agenda (provided NGRBs have funding remaining after meeting their obligations under (a) and (b)

(d)   Other priorities identified by the Minister from time to time.