Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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458. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if there is any specific legislative or constitutional bar preventing her from introducing legislation requiring all schools to introduce generic school uniforms. [42964/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Under the provisions of the Education Act, 1998, the Board of Management is the body charged with the direct governance of a school.

My Department has no plans to introduce legislation to require schools to introduce generic uniforms. The preferred position is to empower parents to have a say in their childrens' schools uniform policy thereby allowing for the maximum choice and diversity.

The initiative late last year was aimed at strengthening the role of parents in how schools decide their policies on uniforms.

As part of the initiative in question, schools were requested to ballot parents on school uniform policy. This move was aimed at giving parents a much greater say on what if any uniforms a school should have and in turn to tackle the high costs of some uniforms.

The Deputy will be aware that I intend to bring forward proposals for a Parent and Student Charter.

This issue may need to be considered in the context of developing the Charter that each will be obliged to have. An important aspect of the Charter will be how parents receive information and feedback on the operation of school policies and how parents' concerns are addressed.

All the education partners will be consulted in developing the framework for the Charter.

It is my intention to publish guidelines for the development of a Charter before the end of the current school year.