The schools were originally managed by seven sisters from Ireland and aimed to assist the Maori population and the new settlers. From 1853 to 1875, the provincial governments financed grants for the Catholic schools. The Education Act 1877 however, allowed all schools to be free, compulsory and secular, and therefore disallowing funding of Catholic schools. In the early 1970s, increasing rolls and funding constraints saw Catholic schools accumulating large amounts of debt or being run down. The Government, fearing the state system was unable to cope with an influx of students if the Catholic schools folded, enacted the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act 1975. The Act allowed Catholic schools and other private schools to 'integrate' with the state system, receiving public funding and keeping their Catholic character, in exchange for being subject to the conditions of being a state school, such as having to teach the nationally set curriculum. The first Catholic schools integrated in August 1979, and by 1984, all Catholic schools in New Zealand had integrated.