Sir,- Educate Together ("Educate Together takes legal advice on admissions," June 27th) complains about its schools having to give preference to applicants within its catchment areas in contrast to faith-based schools that can give preference to baptised children.
Educate Together schools should be able to give preference to families who believe in the principles of Educate Together.
If need be, the State should provide enough schools to meet that demand, rather than jeopardise the demand for the faith-based schools.
An ideal solution would be for the State to provide money, equivalent to the existing proportionate cost per child to the State for primary and secondary education, to families to enable them to pay tuition to whatever school they want. In that way, all could be accommodated.
Also the faith-based schools, even if less in number, would be better able to provide faith formation rather than just sacrament preparation that for many are more of a coming of age observance. – Yours, etc, JOHN P McCARTHY, Prof Emeritus of History, Fordham University, New York.
Sir, – While I can understand the chief executive of Educate Together Paul Rowe’s frustration at barriers to school access due to the absence of a baptism certificate, his use of data is more educate yourself than educate together.
While it is a fact that some Educate Together schools are over oversubscribed, it is also a fact that most urban primary schools are also oversubscribed.
The absence of any analysis of how much of extra demand for places is due to the absence of baptism and how much is due to one child having multiple school applications makes the numbers meaningless.
A good example of using data more for support than illumination. – Yours, etc, DERMOT O’ROURKE Lucan, Co Dublin.