Before my era, Donagh O’Malley’s daring and forward-thinking decision to implement free secondary schooling in Ireland serves as a shining example of moments in the first hundred years of the State when our joint ambition for a brighter future for our young ones overcame fiscal constraints and administrative hurdles.
What is the current status of our shared dream? As a representative in the Oireachtas, I ask this amidst a flood of narratives of hardship and challenge I have received from parents via email, clinics, and social media channels. These are parents who had not just hoped, but rather assumed they would secure a place for their children in their local secondary school, and were instead faced with an undersupply of spots as well as a fragmented and disordered enrolment and application process.
We comprehend that it is not possible to have a secondary school on every block or within each residential community of each hamlet. However, there appears to be a clear issue if we intentionally design and construct new settlements, districts, and cities, while children residing in these areas can’t be ensured a seat in a local school.
Adding fuel to the fire, our present admission procedure for schools is creating turmoil for households residing in heavily populated regions across the nation such as Blanchardstown, Castleknock, and beyond, where multiple upper-medium schools struggle with excess demand.
In order to uphold our commitment to value all children equally, we need a dual approach: first, increase investment in additional secondary school spots in regions experiencing high demand, and secondly, instigate an active process of amending the application system for upper secondary education.
It is indeed an alarming revelation for parents- who themselves might have attended the local school and now live just across the street- to find that their child hasn’t secured admission. Then there are families who sent applications to three distinct schools in their locality and received no offers for a considerable amount of time. There are households that relocated to regions that prioritise feeder schools over catchment areas in their school admission rules, and now find it impossible to ensure a spot in the same secondary school as their peers, and are confronting similar struggles even in the new region. Furthermore, what about the youngsters who are currently on waiting lists for special class slots for the academic year starting in September 2024?
All of these instances represent real circumstances that I have encountered in the course of my duties as a public official in the past half year. They relate closely to situations I’ve dealt with over the preceding five years. And yet, there exists a better way.
Initiated in segments of north Dublin and Limerick, educational institutions have collaborated to build a unified application method for secondary education. The schools themselves have designed this streamlined scheme, featuring a single application form with a uniform deadline. This makes it possible for families to apply to numerous schools in their vicinity, while also enabling parents to express their preferences.
Such a unified application mechanism can ease the admissions process for secondary education, reducing anxiety for families, pupils and schools, resulting from annual extended periods of uncertainty.
Each individual school upholds its unique admissions rules while adopting the unified application method, making sure that pupils who are keen to gain admission to specific schools are prioritised. The organisation of this application is carried out by a central committee, and the process as a whole is expedited. This not only helps continuously reduce stress faced by stakeholders, but it also delivers much-required lucidity to the Education Department regarding overall place shortages.
Notably, this method would lessen the degree of interference by the Education Department at the last minute. More so, a committee system could allow primary and secondary education institutes to collaborate over special classes and slots needed for students with additional needs during the transition to secondary school.
The system is especially beneficial for families for whom English isn’t the first language, streamlining the negotiation of varying school admission policies, geographical catchment considerations, and parish borders.
Unified applications, however, aren’t a cure-all, particularly for students seeking admission to highly coveted schools. It doesn’t negate the necessity for the Education Department to stay ahead of place demands in school areas. But stakeholders like principals and parents who have experienced it firsthand view it as a notable improvement.
The Education Department recognises the advantages and legislative preparedness that could back such a method, but traditionally the department has maintained a laissez-faire stance in managing admissions, as long as the policies are transparent, impartial, and fairly applied. However, it’s not fair or equitable to have a process that starts each year in October and ends the following August, causing distress for parents hunting for secondary school places for their children while other children are taking entrance tests and purchasing school uniforms.
The department agrees that a good collaboration between schools helps maintain enrolment processing at the earliest stage of the annual cycle. Sharing information between schools for student admission is permitted. Existing laws even allow the Minister to direct school boards to cooperate on admission procedures.
The inaccuracy in school principals’ petition concerning controversial change to learning support has been disputed by the Department of Education, a conference has recently revealed. It’s unsettling how many parents are oblivious to the fact that special education staff do not necessitate additional qualifications. Regardless of knowing all the facts and recognising the difficulties faced by the Department, individual households and schools, there’s a conspicuous lack of motivation to innovate.
The Department of Education should halt its practice of delegating responsibility to schools. Instead, it should cooperate with them to establish an effective and fair enrolment process for everyone. To tackle the recurring disarray of secondary school admissions, we require practical solutions – such as the general application process.
We must once again unify our hopes of a more prosperous Ireland for our children and overcome the obstacles presented by budget and bureaucracy. Emer Currie is a distinguished senator for Dublin West representing Fine Gael.