New school admissions legislation
will do nothing to change the “Catholic first” enrolment policies of the
vast majority of schools, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
Minister for Education Richard Bruton
is planning to introduce new laws ahead of the next academic year in
order to bring greater fairness and transparency to school admission
policies.
However, patron bodies and
campaign groups told an Oireachtas education committee on Thursday that
the school admissions Bill will not change the “baptism barrier” which
allows oversubscribed denominational schools to discriminate against
children on the basis of their religion.
Educate Together
said the legislation failed to address the “injustice” faced by many
families attempting to enrol their children in schools across Ireland.
Paul Rowe,
the organisation’s chief executive, said this was due to an education
system in which more than 96 per cent of schools were religious-run and
“Catholic first” enrolment policies were effectively sanctioned under
the Equal Status Act.
The Act allows denominational schools the right to discriminate against children on the basis of their religion.
Mr Rowe said: “In our experience,
this remains the most serious issue concerning school admissions facing a
rising number of families in Ireland.”
He said there were still large
areas of the country where parents have no alternative but to send their
children to denominational schools.
However, the proposed legislation did nothing to address this.
Mr Rowe said: “What would truly
serve the common good is a national network of equality-based schools
that welcome and cherish all children.”
The Education and Training Boards
Ireland, the patron body for almost 300 secondary and primary schools,
also said it was seriously concerned that students may still be refused
access to their local school for religious reasons.
Pat O’Mahony, the organisation’s education policy officer, said the days when the State’s population was predominantly Roman Catholic and when religious observance was an integral part of daily life were “gone forever - whether we like it or not”.
While the Minister for Education has indicated that about 20 per cent of schools are oversubscribed, the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association said the figure was misleading.
The association said
oversubscription was only an issue in between 3 and 6 per cent of its
primary schools, based on a recent survey of diocesan education
secretaries.
It said that any oversubscription is confined to a relatively small number of schools in the greater Dublin area.
“The vast majority of Catholic
primary schools take everyone who applies,” the association said, in a
written submission to the committee.
Repeal
Speaking before the committee,
several groups - including the Education Equality campaign group -
called for the immediate repeal of the Equal Status Act to ensure all
children have an equal opportunity to attend their local school,
regardless of religion.
Paddy Monahan,
the group’s spokesman, said: “In short, it is profoundly wrong that
four- and five-year-old children should face State-imposed
discrimination and segregation on the basis of religion.” Equate
Ireland, a campaign group, said the perception that it was impossible to
amend the Act was misplaced.
Dr Eoin Daly, of NUI Galway,
and a member of Equate, said the Oireachtas has the power to require
all publicly-funded schools to accept all children of all religions and
none on an equal basis.
In a joint presentation, Atheist
Ireland, along with the Evangelical Alliance Ireland and the Ahmadiyya
Muslim Community of Ireland, said discrimination on the basis of
religion should be made a human rights issue.
“The State is not balancing
competing rights. It is simply ignoring our guaranteed rights to equal
access to a local school, and far more importantly, to have the State
curriculum delivered in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner,”
the alliance’s spokeswoman, Jane Donnelly, said.
Separately, Gaeloideachas, the
representative body for more than 300 Irish language schools, said its
schools should be allowed to prioritise native Irish speakers in their
school admission policies.
Bláthnaid Ní Ghréacháin, the
group’s chief executive, said: “It is imperative that schools maintain
the basic right to protect and maintain the language of instruction and
communication of the school and its community so that the future of both
the Irish language and of the immersion education model in Ireland is
sustainable.”