Council Acting President, Mr John Haydon, said “this follows the Council’s disappointment with the Education minister’s decision to approve the new Brindabella Christian College and Canberra Christian School campuses, given the strong objections a number of education groups made to the applications and the lack of justification provided for the new schools .

There needs to be a far more rigorous and open process to ensure new applications are adequately assessed and that applicants provide all the information and evidence required to support their applications.

The Act needs changing to improve the transparency of this process, rigorous and fair criteria for approval of non-government schools need to be included in the act, public money is being spent to fund these new campuses, the public has a right to know about them” says Mr Haydon.

The Council looks forward to working with the ACT Government to improve the application and decision making processes for all schools.