Capital Grants Program

Summary
Forms & Procedures

Program Summary

The objectives of the Australian Government’s Capital Grants Program (CGP) are to:

  • Provide and improve school capital infrastructure, particularly for the most educationally disadvantaged students
  • Ensure attention to refurbishment/upgrading of capital infrastructure for existing students, while making provision for needs arising from new demographic and enrolment trends
  • Pursue the Commonwealth’s other priorities and objectives for schooling, such as:
    • Providing better learning environments
    • Responding to new demographic or enrolment trends
    • Supporting quality teaching
    • Supporting parental and community engagement
    • Supporting safety for the school community
    • Supporting the curriculum
    • Supporting educational opportunities for Indigenous students
    • Supporting educational opportunities for students with a disability
    • Addressing another area of particular educational disadvantage

The aims and objectives of the CGP are documented in the publication Capital Grants Program Guidelines, which is available below for downloading.

The amount of funding provided by the Australian Government under this program varies each year, with the final allocation of $4,742,993 confirmed for the most recent program funding year in 2024.

A maximum requested grant limit of $1,500,000 will normally apply under this program. However, for projects that are for the establishment of new schools, new campuses, or (either wholly or primarily) new education levels, grant funding of up to $2,000,000 towards a project will be considered. Funding for projects is generally provided over a two to three year period, which means that prospective applicants may need to borrow funds to finance their projects in the interim.

New Schools

Under the CGP, a new school in its establishment phase may submit an application for funding that includes up to two additional project stages, noting that funds under this program are limited and multi-stage projects are subject to the same competitive application assessment process.

Grants for capital expenditure must be used for the following:

  • Investigating the need for:
    i) schools in particular areas, or
    ii) schools of particular kinds in particular areas, or
    iii) buildings or other facilities (or parts of buildings or other facilities), or equipment
  • Purchasing land, with or without buildings (or parts of buildings)
  • Planning for the erection, alteration, extension, demolition or refurbishment of a building or other facility (or part of a building or other facility)
  • Developing or preparing land for building or other purposes
  • Erecting, altering, extending, demolishing or refurbishing a building or other facility (or part of a building or other facility)
  • Installing or upgrading water, electricity or any other services
  • Providing equipment, including information technology (as part of a broader capital project unless special circumstances exist)
  • Providing furniture (as part of a broader capital project unless special circumstances exist)
  • Providing library materials or obtaining services and goods for cataloguing a library (or part of a library) (as part of a broader capital project unless special circumstances exist)
  • Any other expenditure prescribed by the Australian Education Regulations

Funds are not available for:

  • Facilities which have religious worship as a principal purpose
  • Facilities in a co-educational school where those facilities will not, as far as practicable, be equally available to male and female students at the school
  • Where retrospective approval is sought (generally after a contractual arrangement to commence the project has been entered into)
  • Projects proposed to be undertaken solely by parents and friends
  • Facilities where the majority of the use will be by full fee paying overseas, or other unfunded students attending a ‘for profit’ section of the school
  • Facilities that are principally for pre-primary education, i.e. for students below the prescribed state/territory school starting age or where the facility is not in a formal school setting (for example, a school’s attached Early Leaning Centre would not be eligible for CGP funding)

Further information on the CGP is available in the following document:

Capital Grants Program Guidelines: Link

Information on program eligibility and the current grant assessment round is available in the following documents:

Information to Assist Applicants:  View PDF

Program Procedures (CGP):  View PDF