Parents who want their children to attend a Church school will no longer have to queue for hours outside the Curia in Floriana because new admissions regulations will spread the application process across various schools.
Also, children who attend Church primary schools that do not have a secondary school will automatically be accepted to continue their studies in another Church school.
“Our aim is to make the application process simpler by decentralising it and to introduce more transparency since the names of students selected through ballots will be available online,” said Fr David Cilia, who is one of the reform coordinators.
His colleague, Fr Charles Mallia, explained that the new procedure will introduce a two-ballot system.
The first ballot will determine which students will be among the 1,866 new pupils attending Church schools. The second will establish a ranking order through which parents or guardians will choose their preferred school on a first come, first served basis.
This system forms part of the Church school reform, launched last January in line with the government’s education reform.
Until this year parents who wanted to send their children to a Church school had to first queue at the Curia’s offices to pick up an application form. They then had to return to the Curia a few days later with the filled application in which they indicated their preferred schools.
As from next year this process will entail only one visit. Parents will be able to fill in the application form available at a range of Church schools in January. They will take with them the necessary documentation listed in the regulations (available online), including birth and baptism certificates, but will not mark their preferred schools as that will be dealt with in the second ballot.
Another change to the system concerns children granted automatic admission to Church schools. Under the current system these include children from Church homes, children whose siblings attend a particular school and serious humanitarian cases. The new system has two new categories: children of school staff and those who attend Church primary schools which do not have a secondary level.
Applicants who are not among these various automatic entrants will be selected through the first ballot. The second ballot will include the students picked in the first ballot and some of the automatic entrants – children from Church homes and those from schools without continuity of education. Separate ballots will be held for boys’ and girls’ schools.
Fr Mallia explained that next year’s 1,866 new students will be accepted in Church primary and secondary schools in Kinder 1 and 2, Year 1, Year 4 and Form 1.
Some students will be going to three new primary schools built as extensions to existing secondary schools at the Seminary, St Augustine and St Paul’s Missionary.
St Augustine was still awaiting a planning permit but had a contingency plan in case construction was not completed in time for the scholastic year, Fr Cilia said.
Savio College was originally meant to extend its school but plans had fallen through.
When it came to the three new primary schools, students could apply to enter at Year 1 or 4. The aim was to fill the schools over three years.
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