Copyright irishexaminer
It emerged this week that several schools in Cork are seeking funds from parents of children to whom they offered school places, despite legislation outlawing the practice. The schools solicit contributions to offset various costs — assessments, an induction day, and administration in one case, a “voluntary registration fee” in another, while yet another school was seeking a “student services charge” towards items such as insurance, locker rental, exam costs, and school travel for sports teams. The Department of Education told this newspaper the Education (Admissions to schools) Act 2018 “explicitly prohibits” the charging of admission and enrolment fees for admission to, or for continued enrolment in, a school. It is understandable that parents keen to have their children enrolled in their secondary school of choice would be reticent about refusing to pay such fees, but it is unacceptable that schools should flout the law like this. The various stratagems and reasons used to justify the charges are nothing to be proud of, particularly when such contributions have the potential to put significant financial pressure on parents. It would be no surprise to hear the practice defended on the general grounds of underfunding in education. In some cases this is completely spurious as a rebuttal, as some schools which seek voluntary contributions are more than adequately resourced. Should schools which charge fees often running to thousands of euro and which are also funded by the State, through the Department of Education, also seekfinancial contributions from parents? There is no debate about schools seeking fees to enrol children. It is prohibited by legislation and should stop immediately. Irish education action plan This week, education minister Helen McEntee unveiled new policies for Irish-medium education and an action plan for Irish in English-medium schools. Significant work is under way in this area. Gaeloideachas has been funded to develop a resource to help parents support their children’s learning of Irish. Dublin City Council is involved in a pilot scheme with a cluster of gaelscoileanna, working together to build and support Irish-speaking communities. An Chomhairle um Oideachas Gaeltacht agus Gaelscolaíochta alongside Tide have been authorised to appoint additional staff to support schools, and a taskforce on models of provision for Irish-medium education has been established. The action plan for the Irish language is aimed at all primary and post-primary schools that teach through English, comprising more than 900,000 students. It is not clear, however, how this relates to a survey of 826,000 parents which was announced this week by the Department of Education. The survey will focus on primary school ethos — whether parents want religious or non-denominational education, for instance — but it will also ask parents whether they want their children educated through English or Irish. Will the new action plan be affected by that survey’s results? A question to be answered. Ceist le freagairt.
