AQW 9128/22-27

Mr Nick Mathison
Alliance Party
Strangford

Tabled Date: 19/03/2024
Answered On Date: 26/03/2024
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Education, pursuant to AQW 8271/22-27, how his Department monitors the extent to which schools adhere to the Department's recommended post-primary admissions criteria.

Answer:

The content of any school’s admissions criteria is a matter for that school’s Board of Governors by virtue of The Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1997, although it must ‘have regard to’ my Department’s guidance when setting criteria.

My Department and the Education Authority (EA) will provide advice to individual schools as requested and the EA will proactively contact schools prior to the publication of admissions criteria if a school’s draft criteria appear to be unworkable. Furthermore, my Department would intervene if a school proposed to use criteria for which it had no approval, for example if a co-educational school proposed to use its admissions criteria as a route to become a single-sex school.

However, given it is for Boards of Governors to determine the admissions criteria they wish to use, my Department does not routinely monitor the extent to which every school adheres to the recommendations in respect of criteria.