Ruane rules on transfer subject to legal scrutiny
Publication date: 30 April 2009
Source: Belfast News Letter
ASSEMBLY members will seek legal advice on whether Education Minister Caitriona Ruane’s new entrance criteria for schools are discriminatory.
Stormont’s education committee agreed to consult lawyers on the minister’s recommendation that over-subscribed schools should consider, as a top priority, if a prospective pupil is eligible for free school meals.
Ulster Unionist committee member Basil McCrea called for the probe after claiming the guidance contravened equality legislation, because the number of Catholic children eligible for meals is double that of Protestants.
Ms Ruane has claimed the criterion – one of a series of considerations she has proposed to replace academic selection – will ensure that children from socially deprived backgrounds have an equal chance of going to their preferred schools.
Other factors the Sinn Fein minister wants schools to factor in include geographical proximity and whether older brothers and sisters are pupils.
Mr McCrea told committee colleagues that the free school meals proposal was discriminatory as, of those children entitled to the service, 62 per cent are Catholic and 29 per cent Protestant.
“Why would the Government bring forward something that clearly doesn’t satisfy all sides of the community fairly?” he asked.
Ms Ruane issued the guidelines after the politicians failed to agree a legal framework for post-primary transfer this autumn. They are not legally binding and a number of Catholic and state grammars are set to ignore them by setting their own academic entrance exams.
The criteria are currently subject to an official equality impact assessment to establish whether they are lawful and Sinn Fein committee member John O’Dowd said the process would address Mr McCrea’s concerns.
“The equality impact assessment’s job and task is to identify if any policy is discriminatory against one group in society,” said the Upper Bann MLA.
A spokesman for minister Ruane said: “The Transfer 2010 guidance aims to ensure admissions decisions are fair and give every child the opportunity to reach his or her full potential.”
He added: “The equality impact assessment showed that the free school meals criterion recommended in Transfer 2010 may advantage Catholic children, who make up 62 per cent of the relevant cohort.
“However, the free school meals criterion is designed to address social and economic inequalities which have led to one in 17 children in a grammar school on free school meals, compared to one in four in non-selective schools.”
The committee also heard from representatives of the General Teaching Council and the NIPSA trade union on proposals to create a new educational delivery body.