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WAITING LISTS FOR secondary schools are set to be abolished, but it is not yet known what will happen to students currently on existing lists.
The waiting lists will be phased out over the next few years as part of admission reforms and a spokesperson for the Minister for Education Richard Bruton told TheJournal.ie that “transitional measures” will be necessary as the waiting lists are removed.
The admissions bill is about making it easier for parents to enroll their children in a school that meets their needs. [...] [T]he use of waiting lists can give rise to discrimination, in particular in relation to people who have newly moved into an area, and people who are renting.
The minister is still considering an appropriate time period to introduce the new measures.
The changes were originally scheduled to come into effect from September 2017, however The Irish Times reports that it will likely be delayed until 2018 due to legislative delays.
Teachers have said that they are in favour of the new measure. A spokesperson for the ASTI said that the union is “in favour of equality of access and anything that improves equality of access is to be welcomed.”
Support for the proposed change in legislation has not been absolute, however. On the Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk, former headmaster of St Andrew’s College in Dublin, Arthur Godsil, said some parents could end up challenging the legislation in the courts.
I am not a lawyer but I believe that some parents have taken legal advice on this and I believe that there is an issue there.I would be very sympathetic to parents who put their children’s name down ten years or more beyond and then being told, “sorry you have been bumped off”. That is something that needs to be addressed.
Education Minister Richard Bruton announced the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016 bill last year, saying that it would make sure that schools must admit all students where it is not oversubscribed (80% of schools).
In addition to that, fees relating to admissions are to be removed while all discrimination in the school admission process is to be ‘explicitly’ banned. These processes will be made more transparent as the the new bill will also require schools to publish their admission policies, which will also include details of the provisions for pupils who decline to participate in religious instruction.
Can we take it this just another ill thought out ‘plan’??
@The Risen: it’s called ” let’s play it by ear and see what happens “…
All discrimination in the admissions process to be “explicitly banned”, but in the paragraph above it states all applicants must be accepted in non over subscribed schools. So discrimination in grounds, including parents religion, will still be allowed in over subscribed schools? The detail seems very unclear, perhaps deliberately so.
@Paul Fahey: Its not discrimination though – its selection criteria. 2 into 1 doesn’t go. I have no idea what they are proposing here.
@Paul Fahey: nothing new here. Even now if a parent takes a section 29 and the school is not over subscribed they will be instructed to enroll
@lavbeer: not accepting a child on religious grounds, whilst accepting others on religious grounds is discrimination, to suggest otherwise is simply disingenuous. However, I agree that there is nothing new here at all, frustratingly.
If i understand this situation correctly, then waiting lists exist because certain schools are over subscribed ie they don’t have sufficient spaces for all the children who want to go there. So what’s going to happen when everyone just turns up on 1st September?
@Anne Marie Devlin: Chaos !
@Anne Marie Devlin: In my own experience we applied for a place in a particular secondary school a year or so before first year. We weren’t in the catchment area but gained a place by lottery once those in the immediate catchment area were offered placed. This was perfectly fair in my opinion.
Some secondary schools offer a waiting list system taking names years in advance. We also were awarded a place in a school under this sytem but it is not a fair system and good to hear it is being phased out.
@Reg: so reg, a family buy a house in an area where they want to raise their kids , they kids attend the local primary school , involved in the local clubs, active members of residents associations, the parents went to the local secondary school and are interested in it so actively support it etc. But yet they can’t send their kid to the local secondary school as third no waiting list just a lottery. And the free places go to kids who have no ties to the community or school.
It’s not just the kids who will miss out. But schools and communities will miss out too.
@brian magee: No Brian. Kids who live in the local area are are normally allocated places first. We were in the process of moving but so didn’t get an automatic place. Luckily we got a place and moved a few months later. Try reading my post again without your outrage glasses on!
@Anne Marie Devlin: it would have to be first come first served.
@Anne Marie Devlin: chaos. Thats what we are good at!
Abolishing the students is an unusual but lateral approach.
If I was a parent who had bought a house and put my child’s name on a school waiting list 10 years ago I would be unimpressed by Mr Briton’s new bill.
@techman: Nearly all kids get into their local seconday school. But admissions policies need to standardised so that people are on a level playing field.
I would imagine to allay the concerns of those who are already on lists perhaps the dept will consider making a list of those on the current waiting lists and perhaps a second list containing those new applicants so as there will be no confusion.I cannot help but think that the person responsible for this radical move may well have been pissed out of their head or maybe stoned out of it on some legal high.They are going to have lists and it will record all the stuff that they do not want to be used as a factor determining places in schools….just like the current lists,just viewed differently.
It’s yet known?…
This should put an end to the squeezed middle class subsidising the education system from their after tax income.
Hopefully USC is maintained to ensure everyone pays at least a little bit of income tax.
@alphanautica: what middle class ? Ha
Irish Solution !
No government gives a rats S if your children go to school and less even if they make into university. And educated nation is a threat to this type of government can’t you see .
So keep kicking the can…. who cares THEY all still will get out of it with their happy pensions and THEY still earn weekly what many here wouldn’t make in a month . So..
A ridiculous idea, I suppose he came up with it in the Dail bar and wrote it on the beer mat. Waiting lists are the only way to manage schools intake.
Back to the hedge schools system soon
Why this picture? The school doesn’t even exist anymore?
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