Mary Hanafin is right: new figures confirm that some second-level schools are ducking their responsibilities on special needs. Some are cherry-picking the more able and sending students who present more of an educational challenge elsewhere

It is something that has been suspected and talked about for years. But new figures reveal the full extent of the division on special needs in Irish education. For years, teachers, their unions and some parents have expressed concern about how some schools are forced to carry an undue burden when it comes to special needs.

Some schools, they say, are happy to refer students with dyslexia and other learning needs on to another school in their locality. Some still cherry-pick the best and the brightest students - in order to sidestep their responsibilities on special needs.

To her credit, Minister for Education Mary Hanafin has challenged schools to end this discrimination. At the recent conference of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD), she openly accused some second-level schools of not doing enough to support students with special educational needs.

She said some schools were happy to refer prospective students to another school in their locality instead of accepting their own responsibilities. Schools, she said, were aware of children's learning needs when parents came for pre-enrolment, but some were reluctant to accept the pupils in question.

Hanafin said she had received complaints from some schools that they carry an undue burden in relation to special needs. The practice of suggesting other schools is common in every town with three or four schools, she said. Her comments drew warm applause from several hundred delegates at the conference.

The figures on this page reveal a kind of social apartheid. Poor areas have a large number of schools in receipt of special needs provision. In general, schools in more affluent areas have relatively few. The relative scarcity of special needs provisions in some fee-paying schools is not wholly surprising. Although the old-fashioned entrance exams are now unlawful, many schools employ their own none-too-subtle tactics to exclude weaker students.

Some schools administer a series of tests - such as the Drumcondra verbal and numerical reasoning tests - to evaluate the academic ability and needs of the individual child. But various schools use the tests in different ways. Some use them to reach out to special needs pupils; others use them to lock them out.

Many schools ask prospective parents to provide a reference from their children's primary schools. The reference can be useful for the school in finding the right academic level for a child in second level. But some primary schools complain that it is also used to exclude weaker students. Parents, as the Minister has said, might be asked to consider another local school.

In some cases, parents themselves are interviewed by the school. This can also be used as a means of excluding weaker pupils.

For some schools, it is a simple matter of supply and demand. As recent figures have shown, many public schools in the Dublin area are losing pupils to fee-paying schools and grind schools. Enrolment in many of the best non-fee-paying schools has fallen by up to 65 per cent since 1985.

By contrast, enrolment at most fee-paying schools is at record high levels. The abolition of third-level fees and the increased disposable income of many families have combined to create a seemingly insatiable demand for private education.

One Dublin fee-paying school, for example, is known to have had hundreds of applications from students, while a nearby State school is struggling to fill its classes.

Against this background, fee-paying schools can afford to pick and choose the pupils they want. In their defence, some schools say they are reluctant to accept special needs pupils because they do not have the teaching resources or other facilities to help these pupils. Other schools say they have "no history" of special needs provision and that these students would be happier elsewhere.

Special needs provision: What the teacher unions say

Responding to the new figures, the teaching unions have expressed concern about the apparent discrimination against special-needs pupils.

John White, general secretary of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI) said his union had received several complaints from teachers about "cherry-picking" by schools.

Some schools, he said, make it clear that they can't cater for schools with special needs. White stressed, however, that the best schools are those which teach pupils from all sectors of society and those with all levels of academic ability.

"They should be neither ghettoes of advantage nor ghettoes of disadvantage in our schools system."

The Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) general secretary, John Carr, said while his school supported the right of parents to select a school for their children, all schools must have "open, equitable and transparent" enrolment procedures. These, he said, must conform fully with equality legislation. The INTO, he said, has "long opposed the use of tests for selection purposes".

In a recent RTÉ radio interview, Mary McGlynn of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) questioned the enrolment practices of some schools. She questioned whether these practices - which work to exclude pupils from some sectors of society - ran counter to the religious ethos of the schools in questions.