Schools face admissions shake-up

Ireland's Minister for Education has set out proposals on school admissions aimed at ending the selection of pupils on the basis of their faith. In his address this week to a seminar organised by the lobby group Equate Ireland, Richard Bruton outlined four options which would prevent denominational schools giving preferential access to children based on religion.

Some 90 per cent of Irish primary schools are controlled by the Catholic Church. The Church argues that few schools are oversubscribed, and so most do not need to use baptism as an entry requirement. But Mr Bruton said that the faith requirement in oversubscribed schools was unfair as “many parents who might not otherwise do so feel pressure to baptise their children because they feel it gives more chance of getting in to their local school”. He also said it was unfair that a non-religious child can be refused entry to a nearby school because preference was given to a religious child living further away.

The four options he outlined included permitting a school to give preference to children of its own religion within a given catchment area; to give preference to a child of its own religion where it is the nearest school of that religion for that child; and to give preference to children of its own religion in respect of a specified percentage of its places. The last and most radical option was to prohibit all publicly funded schools from giving any preference to children based on religion, an option the Minister acknowledged would severely impact on minority religious groups.

Catholic Schools Partnership  (CSP) welcomed Mr Bruton’s announcement of a consultation process on the role of religion as a selection criterion. The Catholic Primary Schools Management Association (CPSMA), which represents the management boards of the over 2,900 Catholic primaries in the Republic of Ireland, also “broadly welcomed” the consultation. Seamus Mulconry, CPSMA general secretary, underlined that the issue was being misleadingly referred to as the “baptism bar”. “It is important to clarify that there is no requirement for parents to have their children baptised to gain admission to a Catholic school,” he said.