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THE FIRST CATHOLIC SCHOOL
Lay couple, Mary and Michael Bourke, established first school funded entirely by their own money and money from the catholic community. At this time they only had 2 teachers and 56 students. In Brisbane there were fewer than 1,000 settlers and 1/4 of them were Roman Catholic. -
POST WAR BOOM
With the post war boom of WWI, most teachers and parents were sent to war leaving Brisbane with lack of teachers and too many and too many students. Surprisingly, with this problem, no schools were shut down. -
ALL HALLOWS
Mother Vincent Whitty and the Sisters of Mercy established our first catholic secondary school, All Hallows. -
ST JAMES SCHOOL FOR BOYS
St James School for Boys was established, staffed entirely by Lay staff. This was a unique model with both Lay and Religious student teachers, receiving their training before and after school. -
CHURCH AND STATE
On the back of the divide of the Irish church and the English Protestants was on the push to keep church and state separate, meaning two different religions couldn't talk to one another. -
SELF FUNDED
Schools continued to be self funded and it would be another 50 years before schools would be funded by the Government. -
ARCH BISHOP JAMES DUHIG
In 1919, Arch Bishop James Duhig came to Brisbane and he was surprised at the poverty of the mostly Irish population. He could see the growing need for Catholic education. 11 years later he established 28 new schools so the children of Brisbane could get proper education. -
COMPULSORY YEAR 10
When compulsory year 10 education was introduced, Catholic schools in Brisbane began to struggle with costs. Schools continued to struggle, until 1962 when the Government started to fund Catholic Schools. -
GOULBOURN SCHOOL STRIKE
Major changes occurred nation wide after the Goulburn School Strike. -
FIRST AUSSIE BORN ARCH BISHOP
The first Aussie born Arch Bishop, Francis Rush, was appointed and Fr Bernard O'shea was replaced by the first Lae Director, Vince Orourk. -
80'S IN BRISBANE
The booming 80's in Brisbane brought prosperity to Catholic education therefore 19 new schools were opened and many of the venues we use today were established. -
SES FUNDING MODEL
The Howard Government vised the SES funding model, a need space model. -
BCE TODAY
BCE started over 200 years ago, with one school, two teachers and 56 students. Today we have 139 schools, 11,000 staff members and 72,000. Brisbane Arch Diocese schools are funded by a mixture of state, commonwealth and fees from families.
