To ask the Minister of Education for his assessment of the appropriateness of his Department's recommended post-primary admissions criteria.

My Department’s guidance on the post-primary admissions process, which includes recommendations in respect of admissions criteria, issued most recently in October 2023. The guidance sets out criteria it is recommended post-primary schools should and should not use in their admissions criteria. While it is the sole responsibility of Boards of Governors to draw up and apply admissions criteria, they do have a legal duty to ‘have regard to’ the guidance when setting criteria.

The recommended criteria are intended to assist schools in drawing up criteria that are robust, are capable of selecting children down to the last available place and help schools consider the children they wish to prioritise for admission.

The guidance also aims to ensure schools do not inadvertently discriminate against certain groups of children, for example rural dwellers or children who have elder siblings who do not attend a mainstream school. It provides detailed explanatory notes on each of the recommended criteria, recommends how tie-breaker criteria can be structured and provides a worked example of how criteria are applied.

The guidance is reviewed annually and updated as required to ensure it remains appropriate and reflects wider developments such as legislative change or case law.