The children of past pupils will no longer be automatically entitled to places in some of country’s top schools, according to new plans set to be put in place by Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan.
As part of an effort to reduce discrimination at the admissions stage, the Minister plans to cut the number of places that can be reserved for the children of past pupils to one in ten, in a move that will likely cause an outcry among parents set on having their offspring follow in their footsteps.
Past pupils of some of Ireland’s most elite fee-paying schools, including Dublin’s Belvedere College, have long campaigned against the changes to the so-called ‘parent rule’.
In a letter to members of the Blackrock College Union, last year union president Shane Murphy said “anything that potentially threatens the tradition where brothers and sons of past students can follow in the footsteps of their brothers and fathers through Blackrock College” was “a threat to that which many of us hold so dear.”
The Admissions to Schools bill will ask schools to guarantee they will not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, disability, special needs or sexual orientation.
Minister O’Sullivan is due to discuss the plan when she addresses the second day of the INTO conference in Ennis, Co Clare today.
