‘Baptism barrier’ in school enrolment to be removed from Catholic schools next year

Catholic schools will soon no longer be allowed to prioritise Catholic children in school admissions.

Schools with a Catholic ethos have been allowed to favour children baptised as Catholic for places but that will come to an end next year, Minister for Education Richard Bruton has announced. The cabinet yesterday approved the proposal to remove this 'baptism barrier' after months in the works. The new rules will only apply to Catholic schools that are oversubscribed. Schools with minority faiths like Church of Ireland schools will still be allowed to prioritise children of their own religion in cases where they are oversubscribed in order to protect their ethos. The change will only affect primary schools, about 20 per cent of which are oversubscribed, according to the Irish Times. Ninety per cent of Ireland's primary schools are Catholic, Minister Bruton outlined in a statement yesterday, but up to 20 per cent of parents have no religion. The minister had previously said that he believed it was unfair for parents to feel they had to baptise their child to get them a school place. He also said that it was unfair that Catholic children who lived far away from certain schools could be given priority over children who lived nearby but were of another faith or had no religion. The move is likely to be opposed by Catholic interest groups. Groups including the Iona Institute and the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association (CPSMA) had already objected to the proposals. Last year, the CPSMA claimed that Catholic schools refused just 1.2 per cent of enrolments in greater Dublin to non-Catholic children. "In almost 95 per cent of our schools we take everyone who applies," its general secretary Seamus Mulcrony told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Skills.