Ruane defends school meals policy
BY KATHRYN TORNEY EDUCATION CORRESPONDENT ktorney@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
Publication date: 1 May 2009
Source: Belfast Telegraph
(c)2009 Independent News & Media (Northern Ireland). All Rights Reserved.
CAITRIONA Ruane today defended her decision to urge all schools to use free school meals entitlement as their first admissions criteria from next year.
The Education Minister said it was important for disadvantaged children to be given priority during an interview this morning on the BBC. Ms Ruane accused presenter Stephen Nolan of pitting one group of children against another when he asked if children with special needs would be given the same priority as children receiving free school meals.
The Belfast Telegraph reported earlier this month that the Minister’s preferred system of school transfer favours Catholic pupils over Protestant children when it comes to getting into oversubscribed schools.
An Equality Impact Assessment of her proposed school admissions guidance – Transfer 2010 – states that the Free School Meals Entitlement (FSME) criterion Ruane recommends for use by all schools as their first criterion gives an advantage to Catholic children.
It emerged earlier this week that the Assembly’s education committee is seeking legal advice on whether the Minister’s new entrance criteria for post-primary schools are discriminatory.
Almost all grammar schools are ignoring the Minister’s call to abandon academic selection and are instead introducing independent entrance exams.
Ms Ruane would like over-subscribed schools to admit FSME applicants first in proportion to the number of first preference FSME application received.
For example, if 30% of first preference applications come from FSME children, 30% of the Year 8 places should go to children receiving free meals.
The department’s own equality assessment document states that 62% (2,584) of the FSME children currently in P6 are Catholic and only 29% (1,194) are Protestant.
Of the total P6 cohort, 50% of the children are Catholic and 39% Protestant.
Children qualify for free school meals if their parents/guardians are in receipt of benefits.
It is known that Protestant families have a lower take-up rate than Catholics.
Dr Peter Cunningham, principal of Ceara Special School in Lurgan, said: “I think free school meals is a crude criteria to use – although it is difficult to come up with something that will be fair right across the board.”