Education Minister Richard Bruton will today announce plans to reduce the role that religion plays in the school admission process.
Known as the "baptism barrier", at the moment Catholic children are given priority admission to nine out 10 of the country's primary schools.
In fact, according to reports, many families are baptising their children JUST to get them into the local school.
One year ago today we launched with aim of ending religious discrimination in education. Here's just some highlights! Thanks all #EdReform pic.twitter.com/onRRNR0GT0
— EQUATE (@equateireland) December 9, 2016
Acknowledging that the policy is unfair - particularly as the number of families who are practising Catholics is lower than the number of Catholic-controlled schools - Minister Bruton will put forward alternative admission options at a seminar organised by Equate today.
We want Dep of Education to issue regulations for opt outs so parents and children are empowered to opt out #EdReform @muldoonanthony pic.twitter.com/dZjd6tCERe
— EQUATE (@equateireland) December 15, 2016
The Irish Independent are reporting that he will look at catchment area, nearest school rule (preference can only be given to a religious child if their nearest school is of a particular religion) and a quota system which will only allocate a certain number of places to religious children.
He will also look at the option of an outright ban on using religion as a factor in admission policies.
EQUATE Seminar on School Admissions to discuss the resolution of the Baptism Barrier #edrefrom https://t.co/yJk357eRKP pic.twitter.com/Yl1GkZrl6Q
— EQUATE (@equateireland) January 16, 2017
Talking about the issue, Mr Bruton said: "It is unfair that preference is given by publicly funded religious schools to children of their own religion who might live some distance away, ahead of children of a different religion or of no religion who live close to the school."
