The principal of the school whose charity fundraiser was criticised as “gender morphing” by Cory Bernadi says he was “amused” by the controversy as students wore dresses or casual clothes on Friday to mark the event.

Year 5 students at Craigburn primary school in South Australia initiated the “do it in a dress” fundraiser and had hoped to raise $900 from gold coin donations on the last day of the school term for the One Girl charity, which helps provide education for girls in Africa.

But the students raised more than $275,000 after Bernardi’s criticism of the event made it a global story.

One school in SA now has 'wear a dress day'. This gender morphing is really getting absurd #auspolhttps://t.co/399EoSQxYz — Cory Bernardi (@corybernardi) September 20, 2017

On Friday the chief executive of Melbourne-based One Girl, Morgan Koegel, flew to Adelaide to thank the students and explain where their donations will go.

The charity helps provide education for girls in Sierra Leone and Uganda, and Koegel said the school’s fundraising would support scholarships for more than 900 students.

Koegel said since Bernardi’s tweet, there had been an influx in other schools and universities signing up to raise money for the charity.

“We’ve had hundreds of schools take part over the years but since all of this happened there’s been a big increase ... we’ve definitely had more schools and universities sign on since that time,” she said.

“We didn’t even have the chance to become concerned initially because by the time I’d seen [Bernadi’s] tweet the donations had already flown in, there wasn’t even an opportunity to see it as a negative before it turned into feeling grateful, humbled and proud of the students and the Australian community.”

Stoked to be speaking with Craigburn Primary about the impact that their #doitinadress fundraising has had! @onegirlorg pic.twitter.com/8sJCFue73m — Morgan Koegel (@morgankoegel) September 28, 2017

The principal of Craigburn primary school, Paul Luke, wore a dress on the day. He said he was proud of the students and “amused” by the controversy that had enveloped the fundraiser.

“Not in a derogatory sense, but just understanding the world we live in now where any communication is only a push of a button [and] everyone has a voice,” he said.

He said the school had tried to stay clear of the controversy.

“Certainly from the students’ point of view they’ve been pretty shielded from what’s been happening on social media,” he said. “What they have been doing on a daily basis is looking at the online metre of donations ticking over and how many kids that translated into.”

How cool is Will from Craigburn Primary School! Do It In A Dress today for a great cause, with a touch of Crows @theTiser ❤️💛💙 pic.twitter.com/wlPntyRbEE — Katrina Stokes (@Katrina_Stokes) September 29, 2017

SenatorLast week Bernardi last week said the school’s timing of the fundraiser was poor.

“In the hypersensitive time where we’ve got same-sex marriage debate, we’ve got people concerned about gender ideological training in schools, I think this is entirely inappropriate,” he said.

But the campaign has run annually for six years, with a growing number of schools taking part. It has nothing to do with the marriage equality debate or gender identity, and is based on the school dress being a symbol of empowerment in developing countries.

Koegel said the fundraising always took place between August and October.

“We’re Australian-based but all of our work is in Africa; we’ve never before been asked to weigh in on Australian politics.”

Luke said the students had chosen the One Girl charity after learning about education around the world.



Craigburn Primary broken the record for One Girl charity by raising the most money from one event @abcnewsAdelaide pic.twitter.com/CdqTJfoyMY — Sowaibah hanifie (@SowaibahH) September 29, 2017

“They’d been finding out kids not experiencing schooling as they are [and] realising that some kids, particularly girls in some parts of Africa, don’t go to school at all,” he said.



“We certainly weren’t encouraging them to wear dresses ... they were obviously able to just wear their casual clothes, and the students understood it was a symbolic thing.”