Immigrant children 'clustered' in schools

Immigrant children are being “clustered” in certain primary schools in Ireland, according to the Integration Centre, which has called for urgent reform of enrolment policies in all primary schools.

The centre claimed a trend had become entrenched where immigrant children went to certain schools and white Irish children to others.

An analysis of three schools in each of three cities – Cork city north, Galway city north and Dublin 7 in the north city area – found significant variations in the numbers of immigrant children in schools in the same catchment area.

Chief executive of the Integration Centre Killian Forde said this clustering was due to enrolment policies connected to religion. “A large number of schools use religion as the decisive factor in enrolment when places are limited and this creates this channelling of students to specific schools.”

In the Galway study, 70 per cent of children in one school were from immigrant backgrounds, while just 21 per cent of immigrant children attended the second school and 22 per cent in the third school.

In Cork the figure was 50 per cent in one school but 5 per cent in the second and 13 per cent in the third. In the Dublin examples, 48 per cent of children were immigrant in one school, while 8 per cent were immigrant in a second school and 30 per cent in the third school.