Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund

The Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF) provides payments for eligible students to attend activities like:

• school camps or trips
• swimming and school-organised sports programs
• outdoor education programs
• excursions and incursions.

From 2020, the Victorian Government is investing an additional $160.9 million for the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund over the next four years. This funding will help ensure more than 220,000 government and non-government students from lower-income families can participate in camps, sports and excursions each year.

Criteria 1 The applicant must be one of the following:

a parent/carer (of the relevant student) who is: on the first day of term one (30 January 2023) or the first day of term two (24 April 2023) an eligible beneficiary of either a Centrelink Health Care Card or a Pensioner Concession Card; or an eligible beneficiary of a Veterans Affairs Gold Card; or a temporary foster carer; or a student is 16 years or older and holds a valid concession card (such as a Youth Allowance Health Care Card or Disability Support Pension Card). The parent/carer must apply to the school before the end of the term.

Parents/carers who receive a carer allowance on behalf of a student, or any other benefit or allowance not income tested by Centrelink, are not eligible for the CSEF payment unless they also meet the above eligibility criterion.

Where the parent/carer is seeking eligibility based on holding a Centrelink Health Care Card or a Pensioner Concession Card, eligibility will be determined when the relevant concession card successfully validates with Centrelink on either the first day of term one or term two.

If the eligible card is in the name of the student, the fund is only granted to that student, not their siblings.

Criteria 2 For CSEF, students may be eligible for assistance if they attend a registered Victorian school. Typically, these students are aged between five and 18 years.

School is compulsory for all Victorian children aged between six and 17 years of age.

CSEF is not payable to students attending pre-school, kindergarten, TAFE or who are homeschooled.

Special consideration A special consideration category exists for:

• families on a bridging visa, temporary protection visa, are in community detention or are asylum seeker families – a letter from Australian Red Cross or similar welfare institution, visa grant notice or ImmiCards is required as evidence.
• students in temporary out of home care arrangements, including statutory kinship care – a letter of support from the institution facilitating the arrangement (for example Mackillop Family Services) or the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing is required as evidence. Copies of court orders are not required. Permanent care arrangements such as permanent visas and permanent foster care do not meet the criteria for special consideration.

Applications for special consideration can be made through the standard application form and must be submitted by 23 June 2023.

Further information is available in the submitting an application chapter.

Schools can accept applications from newly arrived refugee and asylum seeker students who enrol in Terms 3 and 4.

For these applications documentation confirming refugee/asylum seeker status, visa grant notice, ImmiCard or a welfare letter is required to be attached to the application form and a scanned copy emailed to csef@education.vic.gov.au for processing before 31 December 2023.