The former prime minister was questioned by students from Mandurah Catholic College about the $18.6 billion restructure of federal education funding announced by Mr Turnbull on Tuesday ahead of next week's budget.

Speculation about which schools would lose money through the reform had been circulating, with Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher warning some Catholic schools may be forced to dramatically hike fees or close their doors.

"I think any move by the Commonwealth to relatively disadvantage independent and Catholic schools and relatively advantage public schools I think is just wrong in principle," Mr Abbott told the students.

"This will, I'm sure, be heavily discussed in our party room on Tuesday and knowing a little bit about politics I suspect that the government will decide that it's on a loser if it does anything that looks like it's disadvantaging Catholic schools."

Mr Abbott said it was imperative that any funding deal respected the Commonwealth's obligations to independent and Catholic schools.

"Historically, it's been the Commonwealth that has been the prime government funder of independent and Catholic schools, it's been the states that have been the prime government funders of public schools, I think we have to respect those traditional roles," he said.

"Again, historically, it's been the Coalition which has been particularly concerned to respect parental freedom of choice in education.

"For both of those reasons I think it's really important that any funding deal respects and honours the good work that Catholic schools are doing and does not disadvantage them."

Mr Abbott was visiting the school with Canning MP Andrew Hastie after a speech to Liberal party members in Perth on Wednesday night where he spoke about Western civilisation.

A Liberal party room meeting ahead of Tuesday's budget is expected to be hotly contested after Mr Abbott signalled a debate on the reform, which was designed by the architect of Labor's plan to overhaul education funding David Gonski.

Mandurah Mail