That the system is a failure.

Yes. However, it also tells young people that they have no future or stake in society. We must give them both. That is why we are here, and we must get it right. We must find out why Protestants are not achieving. We cannot say that it is because Catholics have more brains. There is more to it than that, and we must look into the problem. The last thing that we need is to condemn another generation of Protestants or Catholics to the scrap heap.

We should look at the Burns Report to see whether we can tweak it or whether we should throw it out and replace it with something different. We must come up with a system that does not have social injustice, because that is what the problem is about. It has nothing to do with the supposed trauma of the 11-plus - children can cope with sitting the 11-plus. The problem is that we are telling children that if they do not achieve, they will be put on the scrap heap. There is plenty of evidence of world leaders and others who did not pass such exams but went on to get university degrees.

The Member will draw his remarks to a close.

We must do away with selection.

TOP

This is the third time that we have debated the issue of post-primary education, and rightly so, as it is probably one of the most important issues that will arise during this term of the Assembly. How we educate our children and, indeed, what sort of society we want in Northern Ireland should be matters of incalculable importance to every single Member. Already in the Chamber there is a sense that people care. They care in different ways and, of course, have different views on the subject, which is surely what Burns is trying to get to the bottom of.

We should take the opportunity to reflect for a moment on the process so far. I suggest that it has been quite rigorous. Many comparisons were made in the reports that were prepared, and the Burns Report did not just base its analysis on what was happening in Northern Ireland. If we are to be in a global society, and if the Executive are about joined-up thinking, then it is quite right that the Burns Report looks not only at the UK, but at what is happening elsewhere in Europe. As a member of the Committee for Employment and Learning, I hear that there are serious issues about literacy and training. Therefore, if we are now talking about lifelong learning, perhaps that is what we need to address in post-primary education. If there are serious literacy problems let us address those.

Where do we start? Billy Hutchinson put forward some serious proposals. He talked about birth to three years of age, and the fact that we are sending our children to school far too early, which is a point that may not have been addressed sufficiently. Paddy Roche talked about children being at primary school for six years. However, some are only babies when they go through the school door. In other countries they would still be in kindergarten or nursery school, not sitting at desks with books and pencils being told that that is what faces them from then on. No wonder many want to run out the school gate. Many attend for the first day and, at the age of four, say: "Been there, done that, do not want to go back." That is what the Women's Coalition would have liked to look at, but the terms of reference were so limited that we could only consider children between the ages of four and 11.

I have no doubt that other parties will take different things out of this, but in the end we must obtain some consensus and take most of the people with us as far as we can go. That is what change is all about. On that, I commend the Committee for Education, the Minister, and the Department for struggling with this issue. It is right to spend time on it, to give it a rigorous analysis and to come up with a genuine way forward.

The Women's Coalition has already put its proposals to Burns, and I am not going to reiterate them - I have stated what we wish to see as the way forward. We endorse wholeheartedly the values of excellence, equality, inclusion and diversity on which Burns is based. I do not say for one minute that we hand our teachers the problem of trying to resolve this conflict. As Paddy Roche, Sammy Wilson and others have said, the problems of inequality in this society are not based solely on education. We have to look at all the factors that make people unequal - location, housing, family circumstances. That is where I take issue with Paddy Roche. No matter what one thinks about their parents, those children must be given a chance. I disagree with him about deprivation. Even if the parents are prisoners, or have committed acts in the past, that is not the fault of the children. We must build a society that gives those children a chance, and that is what Burns is trying to do. Equally, I suggest that the issue of diversity is one that should enrich a society and add to it.

Selection at the age of 11 is inappropriate. Others will disagree that it is unfair and discriminatory. Again, having listened to the points made by Paddy Roche and Sammy Wilson, I would suggest - and I thought that we had achieved some consensus in recent debates - that the test is not appropriate and that there must be some other way. Some Members may suggest that there should be another test, although others may suggest that it should not be taken at the age of 11. Burns suggested other possibilities, such as the compilation of profiles over several years.

Recent experience has shown me that we are teaching our children tricks when we show them how to complete those tests. Children with good memories will remember how to do the tests. The tests are multiple-choice, and children do not read books and receive the same literacy skills as other 11-year-olds who do not sit the tests. Teachers will say that half the primary 6 year and the first part of the primary 7 year are taken up with explaining the test to the children and having them complete tests over and over again until they are successful. Children who remember the tricks and who achieve 70% or 80% will pass; the others will not. The system had to change, and I thought that consensus was being achieved on that point.

We should welcome the proposal of guided parent and pupil choice at the appropriate stage of young people's educational careers.

Our schools have not collaborated and co-operated in the past. Perhaps it is time for them to respond to the Burns proposals.

We have not had enough information about collegiates. Perhaps the Minister would provide more information when he speaks later. The issue is inflammatory, both inside and outside the education sector. A model has been proposed, which we might adapt in the future. However, can collegiates inject the dynamism, change, co-operation and collaboration needed? The proposal may come up against the churches, as we have seen in the past few days. Teachers' unions have risen to the challenge and some businesses have also pledged support. My concern is that the issue is bigger than political identity. I would like to know if the churches would support the collegiate way forward.

Change is difficult, and I have said before that this may be an opportunity and not a threat. We may need a Burns 2 - if that does not sound too painful. I do not mean a scalding; I mean a proper, informed way that will ensure as much Assembly support as possible.

The Burns Report contains a series of half-masticated, ill-digested concepts about the nature of education, clothed in the garb of dreamlike utopian language that is as nebulous as its ideas.

The truth is that the fundamental question that Burns addresses, and that we should address, is: what is the basic function of education? Is it to do our best for the individual child? That would certainly be the basis for education in the Western liberal tradition. The corollary of that - if the concern is what is best for the individual child - is equality of opportunity. Every child should have equality of opportunity, according to his or her several abilities. A child from a middle-class family who is bright and sharp and well suited to an academic education should have an academic education; a child from a working-class ghetto should have the same opportunity.

I can speak with authority on this subject, because I am the youngest of eight children, born in what is now designated a deprived area, the Shankill Road, and I lived in a two-up, two-down house. I passed the 11-plus examination in 1948, the year of its introduction. Subsequently I attended Grosvenor High School, which was the first local authority grammar school. Some 95% of the boys and girls who attended that school were from working-class homes; middle-class children were a rarity there, almost non-existent.

Therefore, I do not buy into any of this guff about the Shankill Road or about why it is deprived. One reason that north Belfast, the Shankill Road and other areas are deprived is that the community structure and family commitment have broken down. It is due to the flight of people who, in many cases, observed the principles of community, church and family life, and who were committed to the education of their children. Much of what we are seeing now has been brought about by the terrorism and political instability generated in those areas by the Minister of Education's party and, to a large extent, those whom Billy Hutchinson would purport to represent. That is the reason: it has nothing to do with the education system.

However, there is another aspect to the subject, and it is the Minister of Education's ideological drive, which is behind the Burns Report. Prof Simon, a noted Marxist and Communist, advanced the philosophy in the early 1960s that it is the purpose of education - and this brought about the comprehensive education system in the 1960s in the UK - to provide equality of results, not equality of opportunity. Equality of results was for the community. In Russia, it was for the state. People there were not educated on the basis of equal opportunity according to abilities; they were educated according to what the state required from them. People were educated on the basis of equality of results. That is the ideology that is driving this review.

Despite attempts to gloss over its results, comprehensive education has comprehensively failed on the mainland UK. It has failed in comparison with tripartite education. The improved GCSE results show that the biggest contribution, outside the grammar schools, in improvement has been from the secondary moderns - not from the comprehensives. When we look at a new system of education, we must look at one that provides equality of opportunity. The Burns proposals do not do so.

Children with the intellectual capacity to benefit from academic education should have that opportunity. They should have that opportunity whether they are working class, middle class or any other class. We are not equal. The 16-stone boy will never ride a Derby winner. The eight-stone, five-pound boy will never play in the front or second row for Ireland. Those are physical examples. The child with an IQ of 140 or 150 may well become a nuclear physicist or a neurological surgeon, but the child with an IQ of 80 or 90 will not.

We face a system where society has determined what is offered respect. Many parents would rather have their child working as a white-collar clerk in an insurance company when he has hands that can produce a Hepplewhite chair or a piece of Bellini silver. That is a condemnation of the values of our society. That is what we should be addressing. We should be ensuring that the academically qualified have an equal opportunity, and we should ensure that the child who has other skills and capacities for providing a real contribution to society should have the money, backing and educational system to allow his capacities to flower. Burns does not provide for that.

This is one of the most important issues that the Assembly has faced. Many charges have been levelled against Mr McCartney in his time but lack of intellectual ability has never been one of them. Had the Burns Report been available in 1948, Mr McCartney would not have gone to Grosvenor High School. It is doubtful whether, under the Burns Report, he would even have gone to a grammar school - so much for the enlightened Burns Report.

It is a pity that we are debating a report that has made such a mess of the offer that it brings for the future. I would describe it as a dog's dinner, except that any discerning dog would be keen to avoid the mess described as the Burns Report.

Eileen Bell touched on the central issue: the most important point is what is in the best interests of the pupils. What lies behind the Burns Report, and, more importantly, what lies behind the Minister's assessment of post-primary education, is not the best interests of the pupils, but pure and simple dogma. It is a desire to produce, in the Minister's own words, equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity.

Things start to go wrong when there is a driving dogma pushing a comprehensive system at the expense of what is in the best interests of pupils. At least the Minister has always been consistent on that point. The Burns Report even lacks that ideological and intellectual courage, because it tries to hide in a mist of proposals about collegiate systems and other bits of administration. It tries to disguise the fact that it is essentially a proposal to have comprehensive education via the back door. It lacks the honesty to at least argue the case for comprehensive education.

What are the problems that face the education system? They are clearly not the lack of academic achievement in Northern Ireland - we have been consistently above everywhere else in the United Kingdom. Compared with the rest of the United Kingdom, our system has produced the brightest and best. The argument has always been that, despite that, we are still producing the highest number of pupils with no qualifications. That may have been the case in the past.

However, the Minister's figures - not figures from any pressure group - produced in response to a question for written answer from me, show that we now have fewer pupils leaving school with no qualifications than England, Scotland or Wales. Northern Ireland is not at the bottom end.

Is it, as a general rule, a fact that kids from working-class backgrounds have an overall lower level of attainment? There is a degree of truth in that. However, the number of people coming from working-class backgrounds in Northern Ireland and going on to third-level education is the highest in the United Kingdom. Those are not the problems.

It has been identified that we have low levels of attainment in certain parts of the country, especially in working-class areas. However, the key question is whether the Burns Report will solve those problems or whether it will exacerbate them. I think that it will exacerbate them. For example, take the pupil profiles, which will not be made available to schools. The Burns Report is being driven on the wishes of parents, and the level of ambition that parents have for their children, and the amount of drive and push involved. Anyone who thinks that that will benefit the socially disadvantaged is not living in the real world.

Where will the greatest push for children to go to grammar schools come from? It will come from areas of middle-class Northern Ireland where expectations are higher, and where there is a certain amount of social pressure on those children to attain grammar school places. Pupil profiles used in that way would exacerbate the problem.

We have not done away with selection. We have replaced it with selection by postcode - selection, ultimately, by ability to pay. The first two methods of selection are that if a sibling is at that grammar school, preference will be given, and if a child is the son or daughter of a teacher, he or she will get preference - presumably that is a device to keep the teaching unions as quiet as possible on the matter.

The Minister, who belongs to a party that feels itself so much in the modern world that it decries the hereditary monarchy and the hereditary system that was in the House of Lords, wants to have a system where we have hereditary places at grammar schools. If a child happens to be born into the right family and lives close to the school, that child will gain a place in a grammar school.

In reality, this will introduce a comprehensive system by the back door. Instead of creating a new egalitarian society, we will witness falling standards as were seen when comprehensive education was introduced in England and Wales. In addition, several schools will become independent. Grammar schools will ape what has happened in England, and they will move towards a public school system, in which selection will not be on the basis of academic ability, but on the basis of ability to pay. That is fundamentally wrong.

I, and many like me, come from a generation that had the opportunity to go to grammar school. That opportunity was not available to the generations before us. I ask people who have benefited from that system not to pull the ladder up behind them. Do not deprive people, particularly those from working-class backgrounds, of the opportunity to realise their full potential. Reject Burns; let us preserve what is best in the current system and look at what changes we can make to improve that system. [Interruption].

Order. Given the number of Members who wish to speak and the time available, I ask all Members to limit their contributions to five minutes.

I see that I am to be a victim of your new declaration, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I wish to draw to the attention of the House the guiding principles in the Burns Report. Those of us who see little merit in the report are not suggesting that the present system is flawless. The report's guiding principles are great in theory. However, the real test is in the outworking and application of those principles. Most of them have been at the heart of our education system for many years. No one would disagree with the principle of an education system that is child-centred, values children equally and gives breadth of opportunity to all the skills and talents that children possess. However, a close study of the great vision of Burns reveals that the principles are not as wholesome as was first thought. The revolution that the Burns Report will trigger will undoubtedly lead to a catastrophe. For example, the report proclaims:

and that

However, since the review proposals will potentially disadvantage the very best children academically, as well as most of the less able, these principles are turned on their head. The Burns recommendations mean that there will be less suitable opportunity, reduced access to the schools most suited to children's needs and reduced opportunity for all sorts of excellence for most, if not all, children.

The report states:

It is obvious to everyone except the review body that owing to the impact of their new neighbourhood comprehensive schools, many academically able young people, especially those from outlying areas and the outskirts of large towns, will not be able to develop to the full. Equally, many children placed in academic schools are likely to suffer.

Another guiding principle suggests that schools should enable children to have a commitment to lifelong learning. Really? Perhaps there is a lifelong love within certain specialisms such as reading, language and mathematics. However, young people have no notion of lifelong learning at ages 16 or 18. What type of children have the Burns review members been teaching in the past 10 years? It would be interesting to find out. Perhaps the reason for such a lack of realism in education and school management terms is that it would appear that not one member of the panel has been a practising teacher during that time. Five of the 11 members of the review body have never taught at all. The rest have only been involved indirectly in the practice of teaching.

The report states:

That is a partial truth.

There is a huge need for good doctors, accountants and lawyers, but there is an even greater need for good electricians, plumbers and mechanics. Burns does not begin properly to address the latter shortcoming. The notion that tradesmen and professionals can be developed satisfactorily side by side in all schools is a complete nonsense and impractical. That is not to value one profession higher than the other; it is simply to recognise a general truth that most teachers and pupils naturally recognise.

There are many things that I want to say about principles, but time is passing. I refer the Assembly to a research booklet by Dr John Marks, an academic. The booklet is in the Library if anyone would like to consult it. It makes interesting reading. His book 'The Betrayed Generations: Standards in British Schools 1950-2000' shows how for many decades the comprehensive system has failed in the four parts of the UK to provide children with as good an education as that which Northern Ireland's children have been fortunate to receive.

The main findings of his research are that pupils in comprehensive schools make up 85% of the age group but they obtain 75% of good GCSE passes. At A level, the proportion of passes by comprehensive school pupils falls to about 65%, and the proportion of A grades that they gain falls to about 50%. The results for selective schools taken together throughout GB are about 35% better than those for comprehensive schools. That indicates substantial underachievement by many comprehensive schools, and perhaps a further 60,000 pupils would achieve good GCSEs if GB had a selective system. At GCSE level, 25% of comprehensive schools perform less well than the average secondary modern school.

I will begin by speaking as the Committee Chairperson. No one could argue with the proposition that we should treat education from the age of 11 through to either 18 or 21 and beyond as an integral whole. The creation of a Department of Education that is separate from the Department for Employment and Learning has probably, on balance, been a good development that has provided greater focus in both cases. However, it has brought with it greater scope for creating cross-departmental concerns. The Burns issues touch on such cross-departmental matters of importance. The Committee for Employment and Learning will wish to comment on the Burns Report. I cannot prejudge what conclusion it will come to, but our consideration is likely to include the following: where and how careers education can best be delivered; how we can widen the range of social access to further and higher education; how we can promote educational equality of opportunity as opposed to equality of outcome - Mr McCartney drew that distinction; and the valid principle of meritocracy. Finally, how can we encourage the study of subjects by 11- to 16-year-olds or possibly through to 18 years, which will equip individuals for satisfying careers and will meet some of the likely labour skills shortages?

I will now make some personal comments, while still focusing on the interrelationship between the Department of Education and the Department for Employment and Learning, because some real weaknesses emerge in the recommendations of the Burns Report. The case has not yet been adequately made to suggest that we should move to mixed-ability or comprehensive schools. It has not been made in moral or pragmatic terms with respect to examination results, and Mr Morrow referred to this when mentioning the statistics produced by Dr John Marks in his book about schools in England, Scotland and Wales over the last half century.

The Burns Report, despite what it may claim, is inclined towards the practical introduction of comprehensive schooling. I favour the retention of some schools that have a so-called grammar school ethos, while upgrading others through so-called parity of esteem, especially technical and vocational schools. In parts of Germany, Switzerland and Austria, those schools have developed more strongly than they have in the United Kingdom. More than mere academic excellence is required. Excellence is best promoted by having a variety of specialist schools rather than - dare I say it? - bog-standard comprehensives. Practices in city technology colleges in England and in the magnet schools in the larger American cities should be examined.

The concept of collegiates is problematic, because that would add another layer of bureaucracy to an overcrowded field of administrative bodies. It is not envisaged that further education colleges would be full members of the collegiates, but they would have to interrelate. That would be confusing. The Burns Report recommends that collegiates should promote the crucial links between education and business, and that they should take the lead on careers education. That could turn into a turf war over the role of further education colleges. There are still serious funding inequities between further education colleges and sixth-form colleges.

The Minister of Education and his Colleague at the Department for Employment and Learning have much to discuss. I support the motion.

I am aware that Dr Birnie has an important appointment and that he may have to rush off.

Although there have been different reactions to the Burns Report in the Chamber, I welcome the fact that beyond the Chamber there is general agreement about the proposal to abolish the transfer test. I am encouraged by other proposals in the Burns Report - for example, the introduction of pupil profiles and the promotion of greater co-operation between schools in the post-primary sector.

Before the Burns Report was published, Prof Gallagher and Prof Smith conducted a review of the selection procedure. I will recap quickly on some of the options that they identified as a possible way forward: separate academic and vocational schools; comprehensive schools for 11- to 18-year-olds; and common lower secondary schools followed by a differentiation at upper level in secondary schools. The Burns team analysed those options and was unhappy with all of them. Regardless of our views about the Burns Report, at least it contained a definite proposal that could be discussed. I hope that that proposal, and the options in the Gallagher and Smith Report, will help to inform responses to the Department of Education.

Paragraph 6.3 of the Burns Report, which deals with modern research on intelligence, is important. It states that the idea of intelligence being measured narrowly is no longer valid; that cannot be denied. Intelligence is seen as having many facets, and multifaceted intelligence is referred to. In the past, transfer tests assessed intelligence in a narrow and academic way, which limited our view of children and their abilities and aptitudes. If we introduced pupil profiles, the measurement of multifaceted intelligence would pose a major challenge, and unfortunately the Burns Report does not go into detail on that. However, before it is introduced we need to know more about the demands that will be placed on children and teachers by the additional assessment of all facets of education.

The element relating to structures and the collegiate system is probably the most controversial part of the report. In its response, the SDLP suggested greater co-operation between schools, so we welcome some of the aspects that are highlighted under the collegiate system. We want to see all post-primary schools working together on the basis of co-operation rather than competition. We are told that the proposals in the Burns Report do not threaten any of the existing schools, yet, as we know, many schools are not reassured and do not accept this. Currently, responsibility for managing schools rests with local management boards and the governors appointed to them. They have control over the values and the ethos of the schools, and many give their time and expertise to provide good education for the children in their areas. Under the Burns Report, they see their roles being downgraded in favour of the collegiate support system and the collegiate liaison councils. Although I support partnerships, I do not support any that undermine the roles or existing rights of school management boards.

In conclusion, we should bear in mind that in the past all good initiatives in education - and there have been few over the years - have come from the teachers. Imposition has almost invariably resulted in failure, and the experience of our educators testifies to that.

The motion is not set in stone. We will be able to challenge the existing transfer system, which most of us accept is a legal form of discrimination that brands 60% of our children as failures every year; a system that reinforces educational and social apartheid; and one that was founded on the elitist notion that only a minority of children are academically gifted and that a child's ability is fixed at the age of 10, or perhaps at the age of four, as Billy Hutchinson and Monica McWilliams said. The current system is a more accurate gauge of poverty and wealth than many of the statistics presented to us. Billy Hutchinson is right in saying that the worst results in the 11-plus exams each year are from the poorest areas of Belfast - the Shankill Road and the Falls Road. This system is emotionally, socially and culturally damaging, and it must go.

I congratulate the Minister for his commitment to the future education of all children and for providing us with the opportunity to end this divisive system, once and for all. We pay dearly for it. Research shows that educational underachievement is linked to poverty, unemployment, ill health and other social disasters. Our two-tier education system tells a long tale of underachievement, and an excessive number of people leave school with few or no qualifications. The system keeps a section of people in poverty and preserves a cycle of disadvantage, and we pay dearly for it. The exact cost has not been calculated, and it is time that it was.

In the Twenty-six Counties, the economic consequences for early school leavers are manifest at individual and social levels. There is an increased likelihood of long-term unemployment, low-skilled and poorly paid employment, and social and economic marginalisation. In Canada, additional expenditure on remedial programmes to help cope with social problems affecting the aboriginal people is costing the Government £1·7 billion. Are we aware of what we spend on remedial programmes? Equivalent research has not yet been carried out here.

If we continue to condone a two-tier education system that labels children at ten and a half and divides them from each another on mainly socio-economic grounds, some young people will destroy themselves and their environment, such will be their disaffection and hopelessness.

Many myths have been propagated about how the grammar school system is superior to comprehensive education, and some Members have suggested that today. The first myth is that the comprehensive system has failed in England. There are 3,569 secondary schools in England, of which 166 are grammar schools. Eighty-seven per cent of secondary pupils in state schools in England are in comprehensive schools. There are no grammar schools in Scotland and Wales. In 1965, when 8% of secondary pupils were in comprehensive schools, 17% acquired five passes at GCSE level. By 1998, when 86·7% were in comprehensive schools, 88% got five passes at GCSE level. Many young people attending comprehensive schools stay on and go to university.

The second myth is that Burns will be implemented without proper consultation, and that these beacons of excellence, the grammar schools, may be closed. The Burns Report is not about closing schools; it is about creating excellent schools in every neighbourhood for all children. All schools now have a common curriculum and pupil-led funding, and that will not change if grammar schools admit local children rather than selecting. Many secondary schools are beacons of excellence - there can be excellence without selection.

Another myth is that there should be a mix of grammar schools and other schools because we need choice and diversity. Supporters of selection must justify the need to put children through the hurdle of selection when there is no evidence that selection provides the best educational opportunities for all children.

Much of what needs to be said about the Burns Report has already been covered.

Of the many representations that I have received, not one supported the Burns Report. In fact, a large organisation such as the Ulster Farmers' Union felt compelled to respond with comments that have been echoed in the Chamber today. That group represents about 25,000 families. The proposals will disadvantage children in rural areas, and we do not want that. The Burns Report has no rural perspective.

The current selection procedure may be wrong, but selection itself is not wrong. Pupil profiles are a possible alternative. The admission criterion of proximity to pupils' homes is unacceptable. The proposal that pupils may be moved from different schools in a collegiate to study alternative subjects is theoretically possible, but that would be impractical for rural schools. The suggestion has been made that there may be a rise in the number of independent schools, but low farming incomes would not allow children from many farming families to attend such schools. The return of technical colleges should be considered.

Members of the Education Committee have received hundreds of responses that contain similar echoes of concern. It has been clearly stated that the principle of comprehensive education is based on a theory of egalitarianism. Venerable theologians would have it that people are equal only in that they are all equally sinners. However, the ideas of Marx and Engels have emerged. Mr McCartney and Sammy Wilson identified the issue that pervades the Burns Report. The burning issue, which is implied but never stated, is not equality of opportunity; it is equality of outcomes. The Minister made that telling point in his press release.

All the research, especially that of Dr John Marks, has indicated that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) studies offered a comparator of existing tripartite and comprehensive systems. The research carried out by the OECD and John Marks, as well as national research on education, indicates that comprehensive education is a deterrent to the raising of school standards. Therefore, the report's basic tenets are wrong. Not only is the report wrong in principle but it follows a political ideology that has been abandoned by most of Europe.

The Burns Report mentioned that it had examined the tripartite system operating in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The OECD examined that system and said that it was in advance of any system in the British Isles, and that its pathways were suitably tailored to the needs of the pupil.

I was touched by Billy Hutchinson's point that the report should have been child-centred. The Burns Report is not child-centred; it is centred on an outdated Marxist ideology that has long been surpassed by educational thinking. I most detest Burns's resorting to jargon, which implies that he was scared to define his position. He never spelt out the philosophical alternatives that are possible in education. Instead, he resorted to jargon. As Archbishop Temple reminded us in a worthy report in the House of Lords, if a man does not define something, the definition remains with him.

I have no intention of repeating the excellent points made already. I want to focus on the consultation on the Burns Report. I have observed, with growing concern, the manner in which the Minister of Education has led the consultation process on the Burns proposals. Although everyone has a right to express their views on that contentious report, a Minister of Education should have exercised prudence when overseeing the public debate that the proposals were designed to provoke, as they have done today in a generally positive way.

In fact, the Minister has sought to adopt a different role. In a series of unfortunate and imprudent statements, he has sought to steer the process and to spin the outcome of that steer. Meetings have been held with carefully selected individuals and interest groups. On 1 March 2002, while speaking at the annual Irish National Teachers' Organization (INTO) conference, with the subtext "academic selection means rejection", the Minister told delegates that he had identified what he claimed were two myths, one of which was that academic selection was a ladder to success for working-class children.

Speaking as someone who comes from a working-class background - as do many others in the Chamber - I am glad that that ladder was there for me and others, to climb, and that my parents felt that it was worth sacrificing many things to enable me to climb it. I am grateful that it was there for my children to avail themselves of. I hope that my grandchildren can benefit from similar opportunities in the future.

If low percentages of working-class pupils currently benefit from that opportunity in parts of the Province, could it be possible that the extra-curricular activities indulged in by the Minister's Colleagues over the past 30 years played a significant part in driving families out of inner-city areas? Those were families who in a normal society would have sacrificed many pleasures to give their children the gift of a good education and who would have provided the real leadership in those communities, had they not felt it necessary to protect their children from the unfolding scenario of violence and intimidation.

A girl whose family lived in a Nationalist area of Belfast recently told me that the only good thing that her father could ensure was that she got a good education that was commensurate with her obvious academic talents. He made sacrifices, and his daughter received a top-class education alongside the offspring of the better-heeled members of her community. She currently holds a senior position in her chosen career. I asked her whether she would deny that opportunity to others. "No way" was the answer. I recall many parents from my former schools who worked hard - often taking on a second job - to ensure that their child would have all the necessary extras that second-level schools require from their new entrants.

On 23 March 2002, the Minister met the Progressive Unionist Party to discuss the post-primary review. The Minister again trotted out his usual mantras, only this time he added the Republican harp orchestra's rendition of "Protestants, Catholics and Dissenters". It is good myth, but it is bad educational practice. The Minister has introduced a sectarian edge to his tired, worn-out, oversimplified and outdated 1970s-style socialism, which was something that I noticed in yesterday's Hansard that he attributed to another Member of the House. That tiresome dialectic may have struck a chord with his Loyalist audience, as no doubt it was designed to do.

The Minister's strategy - and he has had some practice at that over the years - may have equipped him in his "divide and conquer" role, but I ask him the inconvenient question of where the good families who lived on the Shankill Road and the Crumlin Road, and who provided numerous transfer pupils for nearby schools, did move to. Who or what caused those families, who were the backbone and pride of their communities, to leave? Was that population movement not echoed in west Belfast by families also seeking a better future for their children? Interestingly, the Minister's press release fails to tell us the views of the PUP representatives. Perhaps Mr Billy Hutchinson was expanding on that today.

On 8 April, the pace was quickening because presumably the Minister and his acolytes were aware of the mounting popular distaste for the whole business of the unfolding Burns saga. The education and library board chiefs were treated to ministerial mantras. However, in their valedictory statement, the chief executives, to their credit, pointed out that they were anxious to see coherence among all three major reviews of education - the review of funding, the review of the curriculum and the review of post-primary education.

I agree with Mr Billy Hutchinson's comments on the nought to three-years-old aspect of children's education. The early years are a vital part of the process, and it is one that will be addressed shortly by the Committee for Education. To the chief executives, Burns was only one of three issues, and not the great cure-all -

I ask the Member to bring his remarks to a close.

I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall leave my comments hanging in the air at that point.

I would like to begin by thanking my Colleague Mr Sammy Wilson for tabling today's debate. We are dealing with education, which has affected every single one of us at some stage in our lives and will continue to do so through our children.

It is an extremely emotive issue, and I am not surprised at the feelings that have been generated, particularly among concerned parents and teachers. I have been inundated with calls and correspondence from parents and teachers, asking that I use my position as an elected representative to highlight the many deficiencies in the report. I hope that through this debate I can convey these concerns. Yes, we need a vision for the future, but I do not think that the majority of parents or teachers would subscribe to the vision laid out in the Burns Report.

I do agree that the current system of selection is far from perfect, but the solutions set out in the Burns Report offer a very poor alternative. In his report, Burns makes no attempt whatsoever to answer the key question: does comprehensive or selective education provide the best overall results? He has failed to grasp that the comprehensive system has actually reduced educational opportunities on the mainland whilst the system in Northern Ireland has moved from strength to strength.

This document does not provide the way forward. Schools in Northern Ireland have undoubtedly proved their worth in every way. The education system in Northern Ireland is recognised throughout the United Kingdom, and examination passes bear testament to this fact. Our post-primary structure has produced the best results in the whole of the United Kingdom. More importantly, not only for those children who go to grammar schools, but for those who attend secondary schools, there is a mass of statistical evidence that shows that separating children according to their educational ability and needs enables schools to stretch the more academically able and cater more effectively for those with different aptitudes. The superior performance of the selective system in Northern Ireland over the comprehensive system in England in terms of GCSE and A-level performance, once again, would bear this out.

We have an education system in Northern Ireland that has many strengths, but I do acknowledge that certain weaknesses exist, and those weaknesses must be addressed if we are to create an education system that benefits each and every single child.

There have been considerable changes in the education system in Northern Ireland as a result of the Education Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 1989, particularly in relation to the national curriculum. The introduction of the national curriculum instructed all schools, whether grammar or secondary, to follow the same curriculum. This meant that pupils who moved from primary school to secondary school would be offered the same examinations as those pupils attending grammar schools. This effectively enabled secondary school pupils to follow a path to third-level education.

Secondary schools in Northern Ireland have been very successful at meeting the needs of a very distinct range of abilities. They have been able to facilitate this through applying the concept of streaming classes according to ability, with a flexible aspect in place to allow pupils to move up and down according to attainment. This has ensured that all pupils, regardless of ability, have received an education that is tailored to their needs.

In Northern Ireland, we cannot provide a twenty-first- century education for all by destroying the best part of our system and offering a watered-down alternative. We need a solution that provides a different system, allowing for both vocational and academic schools. It could be said that our present system does not cater adequately for the non-academic, so we must therefore direct our energies to providing vocational and technical education for those children whose talents lie elsewhere than in academic study.

Burns goes on to examine the collegiate system. The collegiate system in fact replicates a comprehensive system, which, as I have already stated, has reduced educational opportunities on the mainland. The collegiate system is unwieldy and bureaucratic. The collegiate system is unworkable, as it groups together schools of dissimilar ethos, religious affiliation and academic standard. This system is also yet to be proven. Why introduce a system that has not yet been tested? Effectively, Burns is using Northern Ireland as a guinea pig, which could, in fact, produce disastrous results. We cannot afford to get this wrong, as we are dealing with the education of our children.

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