Parents protest over North Mon enrolment policy

Parents have protested over a second-level school’s controversial enrolment policy which could see dozens of children left without a school place next year.

Gaelcholáiste Mhuire AG previously accepted up to 84 first-year students across three classes each year but announced last month that it would only admit 58 pupils in two first-year classes of 29 from next September.

The policy emerged following a move this year by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn allowing the Edmund Rice School Trust (ERST) to replace the board of management with a temporary manager after disagreement between trustees and the board.

The policy, announced by the school’s recently appointed manager Pat Keating, says space is no longer available for three classes in Sept 2014.

About 20 parents from the Parents for Equal Access to Education group took to the streets outside Cork’s North Monastery campus yesterday to voice their anger at Gaelcholáiste Mhuire’s (AG) policy which was introduced last month.

And they warned the Department of Education to expect a raft of Section 29 appeals from the parents of any student refused a place arising out of the new policy.

“We will organise a meeting after the mid- term and we will arrange a Section 29 appeal for every affected child,” said group spokesman Councillor Thomas Gould.

“We engaged in the same process last year with up to 30 students. The appeals were ultimately not heard, after a policy U-turn which meant that every appeal was successful and every student who was initially refused a place actually got a place. We are going down that road again.”

Mr Gould and the parents’ group dismissed concerns over capacity.

“The accommodation issue is a red herring,” said Mr Gould. “The North Mon is one of the biggest educational campuses in Cork. We believe there is excess capacity on the site; buildings which are not being used. And while it’s not an ideal solution, we believe that temporary prefabs could be installed until a school extension is built in two years.”

The ERST signalled last night that a policy change is unlikely. “The Trust is convinced that the current buildings are incapable of accommodating more children than the manager of the school has allowed for in the school’s admissions policy,” a statement said.

The school is to issue letters in the coming days to parents of prospective students, stating if they are being offered places.