Orthodox Jewish schools should join the state sector so they receive public funding, but be exempt from part of the national admissions code for five years, a report said yesterday.

The Commission on Jewish Schools also voiced concern about the “significant proportion” of parents who were unwilling or unable to offer voluntary contributions to state schools.

It proposes setting up an endowment scheme to contribute towards the costs of running Jewish schools.

Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary, said recently that some state schools were breaching the admissions code by asking parents for donations as a condition of offering a place.

His department’s investigation of three local authority areas found six of the 570 schools were illegally requesting payments. Five of these were Jewish, and said they needed the money to pay for religious studies and security.

The commission which published its findings yesterday was led by Prof Leslie Wagner, the Chancellor of Derby University and a member of the Chief Rabbinate Trust.

It said there was an inadequate level of donations from parents, adding: “Recent publicity over admissions criteria has put the payment of voluntary contributions clearly in the public domain. Schools have been made aware that contributions cannot be, or be implied to be, a condition of admission to the school.”

It added: “It is important that research is carried out to identify ways in which the numbers contributing can be increased.”

The report said many independent, orthodox schools had a “hand-to-mouth” existence. It suggested: “The high proportion of large, low-income families in the strictly orthodox sector and the consequent poor resourcing of their schools make it attractive to switch to maintained faith status, and a few have followed this route in recent years.”

However it recognises that elements of the admissions code are deeply unpopular with parts of the Jewish community, and may prevent orthodox schools from transferring to the state sector.

It said: “The oversupply criteria have resulted in Jewish schools having to take in non-Jewish children if they do not fill all their places. This problem is faced particularly by new schools, which may take a few years to reach their full capacity.

“We support the campaign by the Board of Deputies for new schools and those transferring from the independent sector to be given five years’ exemption from the application of the oversupply criteria.

“The wide publicity given to ministerial statements about inappropriate information being sought on admissions forms in a sample of faith schools has caused further anxiety about the Government’s underlying attitude to Jewish schools.”

Some Jewish schools are among the highest achieving in the country. The report claimed Jewish schools were increasingly popular, with pupil population doubling from 13,000 to 26,000 in the last 30 years. Three-fifths of Jewish children attend a Jewish school, compared with a quarter in 1975.

However a declining Jewish population in some areas means some schools will be forced to merge or accept non-Jewish children in the next 10 years.

The commission said all Jewish primary schools should seriously condier introducing Ivrit (modern Hebrew) as their foreign language of choice.

It found that, while some schools had excellent provision for special needs pupils, others found admitting such children problematic.

It added: “The heavy emphasis on academic success can make it difficult for some children and we have heard of instances where Jewish schools have been reluctant to let pupils continue into the sixth form because they have not met the very high entry grades some schools now set.”

Prof Wagner said: “Our research has shown we have much to be proud of in our schools. However, there are urgent concerns which require long-term solutions.”

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