Parents: Schools may dodge entry rules

Schools that repeatedly refuse enrolment or breach proposed new admissions rules could get away with it unless an independent appeals system remains available, a parents’ leader has claimed.

The suggestion arose at an Oireachtas education committee hearing into a proposed bill to allow Education Minister Ruairi Quinn impose enrolment regulations on schools for the first time. The draft provisions aim to make the process more fair and transparent for families, with wide welcome for plans to outlaw up-front application fees and first-come-first-served waiting lists that can disadvantage newcomers to a community.

But the proposal raising most concern at the hearing — the first of three to be held with some of the 50 groups which made submissions — is the removal of a right to appeal an enrolment refusal to the Department of Education.