Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 31 March 2015
541. Deputy Robert Dowds asked the Minister for Education and Skills when the legislation on school enrolment will be enacted; and the current directive from her Department on enrolment in primary and post-primary schools. [12675/15]
View answerIt is the responsibility of the managerial authorities of all schools to implement an enrolment policy in accordance with the Education Act, 1998. The enrolment policy must be non-discriminatory and must be applied fairly in respect of all applicants.
This Department's main responsibility is to ensure that schools in an area can, between them, cater for all pupils seeking school places in the area. Parents can choose which school to apply to and where the school has places available the pupil should be admitted. However, in schools where there are more applicants than places available a selection process may be necessary. This selection process and the enrolment policy on which it is based must be non-discriminatory and must be applied fairly in respect of all applicants. However, this may result in some pupils not obtaining a place in the school of their first choice.
Section 29 of the Education Act, 1998 provides for an appeal by a parent or guardian to the Secretary General of my Department, or in the case of an Educational Training Board (ETB) school to the ETB in the first instance, where a Board of Management of a school, or a person acting on behalf of the Board, refuses to enrol a student in a school, expels a student or suspends a student for 20 or more days in any school year.
The Deputy will be aware that Government gave approval in March last year for drafting the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill. The Bill is on the Government legislative programme for publication in the Spring/Summer session.
The objective of the Admission to Schools Bill is to provide an over-arching framework to ensure that how schools decide on who is enrolled and who is refused a place in schools is more structured, fair and transparent.
