Secondary schools should not be holding assessment tests unless they can guarantee the student in question a place in the school, a leading parents' association has said.
Many schools may be subjecting children to unnecessary tests by asking them to do just this, according to Ms Barbara Johnston of the Catholic School Parents' Association.
"We often hear of kids taking a test and then being put on the waiting list for a school," she said. "But there is no need to hold an assessment test in the first place unless you have a place for the child in question."
Under Department of Education rules, the selection of a child on the basis of academic ability is not allowed.
However, according to Ms Johnston, the fact that schools test more children than there are places suggests that they may be screening them for academic purposes.
This situation is not helped, she says, by the fact that parents are often expected to pay fees of up to €50 for assessment exams.
This practice leads some to worry that if they cannot afford the fee it may jeopardise their children's chances of getting a place in the school of their choice.
One caller to the Galway Bay FM radio station yesterday claimed that she had been asked to make a contribution of €125 on top of her €10 registration fee for her child to sit an assessment exam for a Galway school.
She said she had been informed that her child's assessment test would not be processed otherwise.
"Our suspicion is that there is a percentage of schools that still select on an economic and academic basis," Ms Johnston said. "It is vital that parents know that if their child is refused a place in the school, under Section 29 of the Education Act, they can ask the school why they have been refused."
However, according to Mr George O'Callaghan of the Joint Managerial Body (JMB), which represents the majority of secondary schools here, assessment tests are used only to give information to the school about the student in question.
"I would be confident that schools are not using the results of these assessment exams as a means of determining whether that child will get into the school," he said.