Enrolment Schemes - Guidelines for Development and Operation
Guidelines issued by the Secretary for Education to assist non-integrated schools when developing enrolment schemes and to advise these schools on good practices which will enable them to manage their enrolment schemes in line with the requirements of the legislation.
Directed Enrolment under Section 11P
In making a direction under section 11P(2)(a) the Ministry would have regard to the points made in the section on pages 6-11, entitled “Living in the home zone”. Similarly, the Ministry would have regard to this section if asked under Section 11P(1) to overturn an annulment of enrolment made by a board under section 11O.
The provision for directed enrolment under Section 11P(2)(b) has existed in legislation for some time and has rarely been exercised. This section provides for the Secretary to direct a board to enrol a student if satisfied that “the consequences of not giving the direction would be so disadvantageous to the applicant that overriding the enrolment scheme in this case is justified”. The Ministry regards this provision as being for exceptional cases only. The Ministry will provide a standard application form which will require parents to supply specialist medical or psychological or other expert opinion in support of their application and will not make a direction on the basis of unsupported statements such as “All his friends have been accepted for enrolment at School X”. The application form will state that the Ministry will share the specialist opinion with the board of the school concerned (unless there are special privacy issues), to give the board every opportunity to consider all the relevant facts. Only after doing this would the Ministry make a direction, if this is considered to be the appropriate course of action.