Church plants and other community groups stand to benefit from the Federal Government's Building the Education Revolution program, which has provided funding for every Australian school for infrastructure and refurbishment projects.
The Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation has been awarded $18.9 milion across their 16 schools, with the top $3 million grants going to Rouse Hill Anglican College and Penrith Anglican College.
Most of the grants are being used to build multipurpose halls and libraries, previously a "dream" for many growing SASC schools who have had to focus instead on building classrooms.
"This means we can build buildings that up til now the schools either hadn't thought of, or had in their long-term plans," says SASC chief executive Dr Laurie Scandrett.
"We can build the buildings we always wanted to but knew we couldn't afford given the low and accessible fees in some of these schools."
However Dr Scandrett adds that the grants will also help local community groups by providing more accessible meeting spaces.
"This is a big win for any outside group because we have to make the halls available for hire," says Dr Scandrett.
Already, some SASC schools are running their own churches.
In addition, SASC hopes to receive another nine grants in the coming months, which could bring the total grants to $35 million.
SASC takes on trade training
Another encouraging development for the Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation has been the recent announcement that they will take over the Australian Technical College at Western Sydney by December, after the Rudd Government cut funding for technical colleges last year.
College principal Sandra Langford says the move formalises the close relationship between the two organisations and that the college, which currently has 18 percent of the state's school-based apprentices, will benefit from SASC's "enormous expertise in establishing low-fee-paying schools".
Dr Scandrett says the move is good news for the corporation as it is "specifically targeting a segment of the education market that we're not currently in".
