Christianity has had a significant impact to the provision of education in Australia prior to 1945. Education was an issue for all religious groups, particularly Christians. The most significant contribution to education in Australia was the development of religiously affiliated schools.
One way in which Christianity contribution to the provision of education was through Governor Burke’s Church Act of 1836. The Church Act provided all religious groups with a ‘pound for pound’, which meant that for every pound raised by for its schools, the government would contribute the same amount in return to the denominations. The intention for this act was to give the appearance of fairness in assisting all denominations, yet the Church of England was still was dominant and therefore benefited more from this legislation.
However, the Church Act was ended when the introduction of the Public Instruction Act in 1880, was brought in by Premier Henry Parkes. This Act was different to the Church Act as instead of denominational funding, the Act provided for a free, compulsory and secular education, thus ending the funding to all denominational schools. This saw the formalisation of public education. This Act brought
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Soon there was a slow withdrawal of state aid to the denominational schools, and the Catholic Church reacted strongly to this. For example, The New Zealand Tablet in 1884, quotes Archbishop Mannix, saying, “As the Church has condemned that religious instruction of Catholic children can safely be entrusted to non-Catholic teachers… dilemma of either forfeiting their share of the educational revenue, or of exposing children's faith to danger ... Our schools are deprived of their share in the public revenue… not to a real want of the spirit of fairness in the mass of our