The Alliance Party today gave a broad welcome to proposals for post primary education reform in Northern Ireland.
In a detailed response submitted to Education Minister Martin McGuinness, the party came out in favour of scrapping the 11-plus and ending academic selection.
But it expressed concern at a number of aspects of the Burns Report including the "rigid and inflexible" nature of the proposed collegiate system.
Alliance education spokeswoman Eileen Bell said: "We have taken our time to consider all the points of Burns and we have come up with what we think is a radical approach to it."
The party is calling for the introduction of a middle school curriculum for all pupils for the first three years of post primary education so that important decisions are not made until at least 14 years of age.
PA