The public will be asked for their views on plans for parents to prove their child is Catholic if they want to get them into faith schools across East Renfrewshire.

Under the proposals, if a Catholic primary or secondary school in the area is oversubscribed, parents will be required to produce a "baptismal certificate" to prove their child's Catholicism.

St Ninian's High School in Giffnock is among the country's top-performing state secondary schools.

The council says there has been a significant increase in demand for places there and at three of its Catholic primaries - Our Lady of the Mission, St Cadoc's and St Joseph's.

The council, which said the school is oversubscribed by pupils from its catchment area for the new S1 intake in 2016/17, will meet on Thursday to discuss the plans.

Councillors on the education committee have approved a consultation on the proposed changes to entrance criteria at denominational schools in the area.

In cases of oversubscription, children not of the Roman Catholic faith will be offered a place in their local non-denominational catchment school, the council said.

The practice of requesting a baptismal certificate has been adopted by some other local authorities in Scotland.

Families of other faiths or no faith will still be able to apply for a place at a Roman Catholic school if they wish.

East Renfrewshire Council leader Jim Fletcher said: "East Renfrewshire Council has a reputation as Scotland's leading local authority for the provision of consistently high-quality education for children and young people.

"Because of this success there is a high demand for places in our schools and in recent years this has increased significantly - particularly so in our Roman Catholic schools.

"We are very proactive in ensuring that our residents can get into the schools of their choice wherever possible and have already taken a range of steps to increase capacity.

"However, demand for Roman Catholic school places is continuing to grow at a rate that requires us to now take further measures to ensure we can meet demand from our resident population.

"We are a listening council and will consider all views expressed as part of the consultation process."

Director of education Mhairi Shaw said: "Over recent years, the number of East Renfrewshire families choosing a Roman Catholic education for their children has increased by around one fifth and many of these schools are in fact either at, or approaching, full capacity.

"We have already taken action to address increased demand at our schools by creating additional accommodation, increasing teacher numbers and classes where necessary and are also in the process of investing £77.6m over the next three years to provide even more new and extended education facilities.

"However, despite these significant measures, the rate at which demand is now increasing means these actions will still not provide the capacity needed to meet the appetite for Roman Catholic school places in future years."

She added: "We also know that we have space in our very high performing non-denominational schools in the council area and as such we must seek to use all available capacity across our full school estate to achieve a fair and equitable solution and best value for the public purse.

"As more families want a place at a Roman Catholic school for their children it is essential that we either create more capacity for Roman Catholic education or change admissions arrangements for our existing schools."