Welcome to the Catholic Education Office Ballarat Website

Welcome to the website of the Catholic Education Office of Ballarat and to the schools of the Diocese of Ballarat. Our Diocese covers a large part of Western Victoria extending from the Murray River in the north at Swan Hill and across to Merbein and Mildura and south to the Southern Ocean at Lorne and all areas west to the South Australian border.

There are 53 Primary Schools and 11 Secondary Schools within our Diocese with a total of over 16400 students educated in these schools.

The first school in the Diocese was established in a chapel at Port Fairy in November 1849. Whilst this school no longer exists, continuous education has occurred in Ballarat at St. Alipius Primary School since the gold era in 1853.