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My son is in fourth class, and the scramble for a secondary-school place has begun

Planning failures and a chaotic school admissions process cause sleepless nights for too many families

When parents find that all their local schools are oversubscribed, many start into a frantic series of late applications for others much farther afield. Photograph: iStock
When parents find that all their local schools are oversubscribed, many start into a frantic series of late applications for others much farther afield. Photograph: iStock
Carl O'Brien's picture
Carl O'Brien
Sun Mar 24 2024 - 07:00

No broadcasting executive ever went broke underestimating the public appetite for sadistic reality TV gameshows. Awake, on Netflix, is one where contestants battle sleep deprivation while having to perform mind-numbing tasks like counting coins to win. Or there’s Touch the Truck, an American show where contestants cling on to a vehicle in a shopping mall for days on end; the last one to remain in contact takes it home. Some contestants end up crying or hallucinating.

It echoes some of the grim reality playing out in large swathes of the country at the moment: the hunt for a secondary school place. There are dozens of areas in Dublin, Cork, Galway as well as large towns and commuter belt areas where all post-primary schools are oversubscribed.

In these areas there can be months of anguish, stress and sleepless nights as families struggle to find places for September. They wait in trepidation for a phone call or letter with news of their application. Waiting lists for many schools run into the hundreds. The proportion of successful applicants in some of the most oversubscribed schools is as low as one in five.

When parents find that all their local schools are oversubscribed, many start into a frantic series of late applications for others much farther afield. It has a profound effect on children, too. They see their classmates excited about starting school, discussing school uniforms and attending open days, while they face the prospect of leaving their community for an education.

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Planning failures are at the root of the problem. Our developer-led planning system means housing estates are thrown up with scant regard to meeting the educational needs of children until it is too late. There are inevitable delays providing school buildings, which typically seem to take about a decade to deliver. New schools, meanwhile, operate out of cramped prefabs or modular accommodation for years on end, unable to deliver a full school curriculum that requires science labs and other basic facilities.

Schools, with few exceptions, don’t co-operate when it comes to admissions; they compete with each other. It results in overlapping applications to post-primary schools, leaving many unsure as to where they really are on waiting lists

Our dysfunctional school admissions system also plays a part, especially in more affluent areas such as south Dublin. Schools are, by and large, independent fiefdoms. They have freedom, subject to certain non-discrimination provisions, to set admission policies that can prioritise children or even grandchildren of past pupils over those living locally for up to 25 per cent of places. They can set their catchment areas as small or as large as they wish, and select as many or as few feeder primary schools as they feel appropriate.

The problems are exacerbated by a demographic bubble of second-level students. No one can say they weren’t warned about it. This is a slow-motion crisis that has been 12 years in the making.

Schools, with few exceptions, don’t co-operate when it comes to admissions; they compete with each other. It results in overlapping applications to post-primary schools, leaving many unsure as to where they really are on waiting lists. Only when duplicate school offers are eliminated, and waiting lists are whittled down, is it clear if a child has a place or not. This can be as late as the start of a new school year. In extreme cases, a child is entitled to nine hours of home tuition if they cannot find a school place. That’s if a family can find a teacher in the first place.

Ironically, the response of education authorities often makes it sound as if parents are to blame for making multiple applications to schools in the first place. The chaotic school admissions system, seemingly, has little to do with them.

All too often, sticking plasters are used to paper over planning failures. In my job covering education for The Irish Times, I write about issues affecting other people. In this case, I see the crisis first-hand. My eldest son is in fourth class at primary school, but already the pressure is ratcheting up.

All three secondary schools where we live – Greystones, Co Wicklow – are heavily oversubscribed. This year 70-80 children in the catchment area were unable to get any school place. None of this was a surprise. In fact, the three secondary school principals issued a joint press release last October warning of shortages due to delays with long-promised school buildings, which haven’t kept pace with the growing population.

There is a rich irony in that the Constitution protects the concept of parental choice when it comes to education. In reality, parents often don’t have any meaningful choice. They simply take what they can get

In a last-minute scramble, the Department of Education recently persuaded a local second-level school to take on two new classes of 48 students. Presumably, they hope the remaining 20 or so parents will be desperate enough to take what they can get farther afield, whether that means battling rush-hour traffic into Dublin or forking out for private schools.

The can has been kicked down the road until next year, when shortages will be even worse. The school, which took on additional pupils, has no new classrooms. So it will have to significantly reduce its intake of first years in 2025 to fit all the students in unless yet more prefabs are sourced. Work has yet to begin on a long-promised permanent school building, which has been talked about for years.

Difficulties accessing mainstream schools are nothing compared with special education. Families of children with additional needs know all too well about the stress of applying to dozens of schools or being bussed out of their communities and being educated away from their friends.

There is a rich irony in that the Constitution protects the concept of parental choice when it comes to education. In reality, parents often don’t have any meaningful choice. They simply take what they can get.

This shouldn’t be rocket science. To ensure parents don’t have to endure this torture, year upon year, it means having a proper planning system where basic facilities such as schools and health clinics are delivered in tandem with housing; it means having school admissions policies that prioritise local children; a shared school admissions system where the real volume of applicants is easily visible.

Reality TV is full of cliches and tropes. One is the “fleeting demographic rule”. The idea is that the target audience will be replaced periodically as they age or lose interest, so they can reuse material on a similar cycle. It’s as good an explanation as any as to why these issues have been allowed to fester for so long.

Maybe, just maybe, with political will, proper planning and some simple reforms, parents won’t have to endure the torment and uncertainty of early elimination from the school admissions process.

Have your say: Are you scrambling for a secondary-school place for your child?