The Church of Ireland told the Department of Education to introduce legislation to stop the publication of inspectors' reports on schools, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.
Education representative Canon John McCullagh said it would be "a great pity" if the Department published reports on schools as part of the new inspection system, Whole School Evaluation (WSE).
WSE has been piloted in some schools, but is on hold due to opposition from teacher unions. Documents relating to it have been released by the Department after 1 1/2 years.
In a letter in October 1999, Canon McCullagh said the Board of Education of the General Synod was "most concerned" that school reports compiled under WSE should remain confidential.
He wrote: "The group is most concerned that the issue we raised regarding the confidentiality of the individual school reports should be emphasised in legislation.
"It would be a great pity to see this development [WSE] put at risk by possible publication of school reports for the purpose of comparison in the media."
He also submitted a report by the church's secondary education committee in December 1999 on WSE. In it, concerns about publication of WSE reports were raised again.
"It is necessary to stress that such reports should not be available en bloc from the Department. It is already clear from the request to the Information Commissioner by the Sunday Times that such reports would be sought and used for purposes of comparison," he said.
In the document, the church representatives said they hoped the reports would fall within Section 53 of the Education Act. This bans newspapers or other media from compiling exam results into league tables and publishing them.
The Department has yet to make its views clear on whether the reports should be published. The Information Commissioner, Mr Kevin Murphy, has indicated it may be forced to publish them under the Act.
Another WSE submission came from the Cork Primary Principals' Network. This group has since been subsumed into the Irish Primary Principals' Network.
The group said ownership of reports must be taken by their main users, the teaching staff. It said language and content "ought to be arrived at following significant consultation".
"Recommendations should be phrased in a constructive manner, accentuating the positive rather than the negative.
"Considering that the report document is to be a resource to schools, it should not be interpreted as a form of league table in order to differentiate between schools. WSE is about improvement and development, it is not about accountability alone," it added.
It recommended that schools be prohibited from publishing the reports, in whole or in part, and opposed schools using the reports for public relations purposes.