Association for Quality Education

The Association for Quality Education has considered the material provided and makes the following points.

• The Minister refers to her programme as radical and far-reaching: rather it is simplistic, narrow and backward looking and will lead to a drop in educational standards.
• The Minister’s vision ignores the evidence. At the time of the recent summit about investment in Northern Ireland, Sir Anthony O’Reilly in his article “Pressing Matters,” referred to our “brilliant, valued education system.” He went on to point out how Northern Ireland’s schools continue to out-perform other parts of these islands in numbers going to university, in G.C.S.E, and Advanced Level performances and in social mobility. The Minister’s programme threatens to put that in jeopardy without guaranteeing any improvement for the “underachieving tail”.
• The Association for Quality Education values the quality of education in all schools not just grammar schools.
• The Minister ignores the facts that a local comprehensive system will allow those who have the capital to move to better areas, near to so-called better schools. The evidence from elsewhere in the United Kingdom and in the Republic demonstrates that this is a state of affairs which will also come to pass in this part of the United Kingdom if her programme were to be implemented.
• In her previous statements the Minister has eschewed academic selection by testing, on the supposed basis that testing would adversely affect the teaching of the New Curriculum. She is now proposing exactly such testing and she says that such testing will not interfere with the teaching of the New Curriculum. These positions are mutually exclusive.
• The Minister’s plan to reduce the numbers of pupils admitted by academic selection over a period of three years is only a stay of execution. The Minister’s proposals resemble the action of someone telling democrats that they will have 50% of the democracy for which they voted in the first year, then 30% in year two, 20% in year three and eventually none. The ultimate goal remains unchanged; the ending of academic selection as a criterion of admission to grammar schools. A.Q.E. rejects these proposals.
• The Minister’s proposals fail to reflect that each measure of public opinion, from and including the Household Survey, has clearly demonstrated that a substantial majority of the people of Northern Ireland supports the principle of using academic ability as the main criterion for admission to grammar schools. In all elections since then, the majority of votes has been cast for parties which support that principle. And the recent Belfast Telegraph poll not only reflected this unchanging will of the people but also showed that a majority of Sinn Fein supporters wishes to maintain some form of academic selection. It is undemocratic to ignore the wishes of that majority. The Minister may speak to the waves, but the tide of opinion, even in her own party, is against her.
• The Province has come far in recent times. What it does not need now is for pupils to be confined to their own areas or parishes. For years grammar schools have been “melting pots,” attracting young people from far and wide, and from every creed and class. We need more of this, not less.
• The Minister says that our education system depends on key drivers for change – demographics, system failures and the expansion of choice for children. She seems to ignore the successes and, instead of retaining these and tackling demographics and weaknesses, proposes to import a failed system.
• The Minister is of the view that she proposes well-managed change. We do not think that the parents and teachers of this year’s primary 5 will agree.
• A.Q.E. will continue with its interim measures to run its own tests. The Association is still of the opinion that, over the next three years, proper Computer Adaptive Tests should be developed. In addition the Minister needs to tackle the flawed concept of an entitlement of 24/27 subjects and to sort out, with her Department, the confusion over what vocational means.
• Finally, to the Education Committee, she claims to have developed a “comprehensive” package of proposals – her term is both accurate, prophetic and depressing. Our children deserve better than being confined to a local enclave, being bused around the area for the sake of the supposed panacea of entitlement. They are entitled to a Minister of real vision who is prepared to listen to the clearly expressed wish of the people.