TUI: Schools which are not taking their fair share of disadvantaged or special needs students will come under the scrutiny of the Department of Education in the coming months, the Minister, Mary Hanafin, warned yesterday.
She said she had the power to introduce legislation to curb this practice "but it's not a road I would be quick to go down until I have real facts".
Ms Hanafin was speaking after her address to the Teachers Union of Ireland Congress in Tralee. She said the cherry-picking of students was not just a "south Co Dublin fee-paying issue". Some schools were "subtly" choosing not to admit students from Traveller or disadvantaged backgrounds or children with special needs or English language needs. They were not openly refusing to take children, but they were making "a positive recommendation" that another school would be better suited to the child's needs.
"I'm not sure that we have enough of hard evidence by way of statistics in the department, but I have no doubt that it is happening throughout the country".
In the next year she would "take a look at certain towns and see how it's panning out and look to see what their policies are and what level of inclusion they have in individual schools".
Even if she had clear evidence that certain schools were cherry-picking students she would be reluctant to legislate.
"But sometimes the threat of legislation can be as strong as the legislation itself. It would be very wrong to put in a blanket cover for the whole country when maybe it's not a problem throughout the whole country and might be confined to towns."
The Minister was loudly applauded by TUI delegates when she said the Government's next legislative programme would contain amending legislation to deal with Section 29 of the Education Act. This clause relates to the appeals process when a student is expelled.
The TUI has been critical of this clause, claiming that most students win their appeals against expulsion and are allowed to return to schools where they have caused mayhem. Ms Hanafin said the new legislation would balance the rights of the student in question with the rights of the majority to learn and the rights of the teacher to teach.
TUI assistant general secretary Declan Glynn pointed to the situation in countries such as England, where students were normally barred from returning to a school if they had used, or threatened, violence. He called on the Minister to introduce a similar clause here.
He also criticised some parents for their "wilful non-co-operation" with teachers when serious discipline issues arose and he called for the enforcement of parental responsibility.
However, Ms Hanafin said schools would have to work to involve parents in their children's education. Then parents would not feel threatened when a crisis arose. "How often does it happen that the school only contacts the parents when the child is in trouble?" she asked.
The Minister also promised to "table concrete proposals" for the post-Leaving Cert (PLC) sector.
The three-year-old McIver report, which makes recommendations on the future of the PLC sector, has never been implemented. Ms Hanafin said there were complex issues involved, but she wanted to work with the TUI in agreeing a way forward for this sector.