Catholic systemic schools across Australia will benefit from extra funding and more resources after the National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) and the Australian government reached an historic agreement on a "Gonski" Better Schools funding plan, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced on Tuesday.

This additional funding will enable Catholic systemic schools to implement the signature reforms of the Better Schools Plan including initiatives around quality teaching, quality learning, meeting student need, empowered school leadership and better data collection and research to drive improvements within schools.

According to a statement from Rudd, the agreement will see approximately 1.6 billion AU dollars (almost 1.48 billion U.S. dollars) in additional funding flow through to the nation's 1,650 Catholic systemic schools over six years, benefiting almost 700, 000 students.

With the additional funding, each Catholic systemic school will see a 3 percent increase per student per year, based on 2013 funding levels.

In addition, the Australian government has locked in indexation at 4.7 percent from 2014, providing certainty for schools through to 2019.

The Labor government has set an ambitious target for Australia to be in the top five in the world in reading, maths and science by 2025. And the new funding arrangements and the Better Schools' reforms are guaranteed through the Australian Education Act 2013 which passed the Parliament on 26 June, 2013.

This announcement brings the Catholic systemic schools in line with the rest of the non-government schools sector in Australia, following the recent agreement between the Australian government and the Independent Schools Council of Australia (ISCA), according to the statement.

Until now, Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland and Victoria have not yet signed up to the multi- billion-dollar scheme. However, the ACT, South Australia, Tasmania and the New South Wales are all on board. Endi