Parish priest Father Dennis Crameri said Catholic Education Wodonga had taken a lead role on this for a long time.

Father Crameri was responding to the Catholic Education Office’s plans to provide assistance to refugees from Syria and Iraq who wish to settle in the Sandhurst Diocese.

“We are delighted to hear that,” he said.

“Obviously we are very, very open to anything we can do.”

The office will provide places for Syrian and Iraqi refugees at primary and secondary Catholic schools.

Its commitment includes other education costs, including uniforms, excursions, books, and technology.

Catholic Education Sandhurst director Paul Desmond said these costs would be covered for an initial period of two to three years while Syrian and Iraqi families established themselves in Australia.

The federal government recently announced it would accept 12,000 refugees, from Syria, with NSW and Victoria each taking at least 4000.

It is considered far too early to know how many refugee students might end up attending schools across the Border region.

Father Crameri said Catholic Education Wodonga already a policy on helping refugees with school costs and associated support.

“And I suspect governments are also going to support that sort of approach,” he said.

Father Crameri said they had already one such student go all the way through to Year 12.

“And so it’s been part of our program for a long time,” he said.

“However, in August 2014 we formalised a policy because of the situation with refugees and asylum seekers.

“We now have families from Bhutan, Nepal, Congo and a few other places. All our schools have capacity to take these students.”

Father Crameri, the group’s canonical administrator, said his hope was the community would continue to be welcoming to refugee families.

“From our role as educators we’d see it as very, very important that the children are given the best opportunities as our own are,” he said.

The Wodonga program has involved English as an additional language teachers supporting the students.