Ruane claims victory over transfer plans

Published Tuesday, 30 June 2009

Moves to prevent Northern Ireland schools from admitting pupils on an academic test have been overwhelmingly backed, the Education Minister has said.

Around 95% backed Caitriona Ruane's guidance to primary school principals.

The minister also wants to give priority to children from disadvantaged backgrounds when colleges choose pupils.

She has been at the centre of a fierce battle with Catholic and Protestant grammar schools which intend to test for entry.

However many teachers and Catholic church figures support the change.

The minister told the Assembly: "There will be no transfer test provided by the Department for Transfer 2010."

"This was welcomed by the overwhelming majority of consultation respondents."

She said the guidance maintains that schools do not use academic admissions criteria.

A total of 3,054 of the responses supported the guidance.

It recommends that all schools should give proportionate priority to children entitled to free school meals.

Mervyn Storey quoted parts of the guidance to claim the minister had admitted defeat over academic selection.

"Here we have it down in black and white: an admission of failure by Caitriona Ruane."

"She will not be able to do anything to prevent schools from using selection based on academic ability to place pupils in a school which best serves their needs."

"Ruane has run up the white flag over the issue. After months of trying to bully teachers and parents and other political parties into accepting her policy she has been made to admit that she has no power to prohibit schools from using selection based on academic ability."

Basil McCrea said she was challenging what was best about Northern Ireland, the academic record of the brightest.

Comments

2 Comments

Stephen in Belfast wrote (1,058 days ago):

Fair enough some of her statements are correct that the current system is not working perfectly for all pupils but that doesnt give her the right to decide on her own that she will change our education system. All of those excellent pupils that currently attend grammer and have the ability to attend grammer schools are just blatently being robbed of the opportunity of maximising their academic potential. By removing academic selection this will result in all those pupils, who have the ability to be grammer school educated, getting bored in school cause the pace at which they will be learning will be reduced to allow less academic more vocational pupils to keep up. By these pupils getting bored they will just start getting into trouble and the stats of our excessivly high grades over the years will dramatically fall below our counterparts in England, Scotland and Wales. I hope that all the grammer schools and political parties continue to fight against her as she knows she is fighting a losing battle.

lorna in limavady wrote (1,059 days ago):

Is this woman STILL living in cloud cook coo land does she not see disarray around the school trying to select the best pupils for the academic nature of that school.The is more pressure on the child to pass the entrance tests because the parents have decided to pay for their child to be tested.It has to be in the best interest of the child that they have the best education . one thing sinn fein will never have and that is a balanced approach to policics