The Labour Party has called for Minister for Education Mary Hanafin to take action after a Department of Education audit of schools revealed restrictive administration policies were excluding children of immigrants and students with special needs.
Mary Hanafin has been urged to act on the audit report
Labour Party spokesman on Education, Ruairi Quinn, described the audit as a "very serious indictment" of Ms Hanafin's management of the secondary school system, and said the "educational apartheid" needed to be confronted as a matter of urgency.
"She has the information and the financial resources to ensure that there is equality of treatment by all secondary schools which are in receipt of State funding to ensure that they adopt a policy of openness to students with special teaching needs and to the children of immigrants to this country," he said.
He warned that access to proper education facilities is a pre-requisite of integrating children of foreign workers into Irish society, to avoid racism and anti-immigration sentiments.
Meanwhile, Inclusion Ireland, which promotes the rights of people with an intellectual disability, also raised its concerns about the audit results, saying it confirmed anecdotal reports that it had received from parents of children with special needs.
However, chief executive Deirdre Carroll said schools were also not getting the resources and supports needed by these children.
"The problem is much more difficult when the child leaves primary school. The Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 gives the right to children with special needs to attend mainstream schools. Clearly this is not happening equally across the country," she said.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International has called for parents to given the powers to challenge schools with what they described as “discriminatory enrolment policies”. The organisation also said that the State had ultimate legal responsibility for the education system.
“The Government cannot be allowed to pass the buck onto specific schools,” said Colm O’Gorman, executive director for Amnesty International Irish Section.
“We cannot permit the creation of an educational underclass of children from already marginalised communities.”
