Grammar to run own entrance test

Another Catholic grammar school has said it will run entrance exams

By Maggie Taggart BBC NI education correspondent

A second Catholic grammar school has broken ranks with the Catholic authorities and said it intends to run an independent entrance exam.

St Michael's Boys College, Enniskillen, which has more than 700 pupils, has written to Catholic primary schools in the area to explain its plan.

The decision conflicts with advice sent out only a few weeks ago.

Principal Eugene McCullough said they made the decision in the absence of any definitive and agreed plan.

However, the school has not given details of what sort of test it would run.

The principal of a local primary school confirmed that the grammar school had written with news of the plan and said the Department of Education "needs to get its act together".

One other Catholic grammar school, Lumen Christi in Londonderry, has already said it will set independent entrance tests.

The decision by St Michael's flies in the face of direct advice from the Catholic bishops who wrote last month to all Catholic schools telling them they do not approve of any independent entrance exams.

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