THE MINISTER for Education in the North has accused grammar schools planning unofficial entrance tests of an abuse of human rights.
Caitríona Ruane was speaking yesterday as two groups of grammar schools met to discuss their approaches to the transfer of pupils to post-primary level following her abolition of the 11-plus exam.
“No child should be tested at 10 or 11, it’s wrong,” she said. “It shouldn’t be happening and it’s an abuse of their human rights,” she told BBC Radio Ulster.
The Minister has abolished the controversial 11-plus exam and set out guidelines for the transfer of pupils to second-level schools, which do not involve academic selection. She regards the 11-plus and other proposed entrance tests as discriminatory and socially unjust.
However, more than 60 grammar schools, some in the state sector represented by the Association of Quality Education (AQE), and others in the Catholic sector, are planning their own transfer tests.
The Catholic sector is planning two tests in English and maths monitored by the British National Foundation for Educational Research, while the AQE is planning three one-hour Common Entrance Assessment tests using its own separate system which is still being devised.
Ms Ruane has warned the grammar schools they are entering a “legal minefield” with their plans for unofficial testing in defiance of her department’s guidelines.
She has said her department will not financially support any school incurring legal costs flowing from the setting of tests.
Representatives from the AQE and the Catholic sector met yesterday to discuss a common approach despite their differences.
AQE chairman Sir Ken Bloomfield said there was a “shared understanding of each other’s aims” at the meeting.
Yesterday’s developments provoked further criticism of Ms Ruane from the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists who have accused her of causing uncertainty and alarm.
SDLP spokesman Dominic Bradley said: “The education minister has thrown pupils, parents and teachers into the fire of unregulated academic selection. She may claim to have abolished the 11-plus but all she has really managed to do is privatise it and then multiply it. Now parents and pupils are faced with a whole array of testing proposals.”
He accused her of promising locally based transfer solutions but delivering no progress.
“Our educational system is in a dire mess and we must get together to fix it right now. We need an interim compromise to stop the chaos and allow educators to find a sustainable solution, and we need everyone to support it.”
Basil McCrea, the UUP spokesman on education went further. “The government of Northern Ireland is no longer in control of a vital aspect of our education system,” he said.
“The announcement that Catholic grammar schools are also opting out, along with AQE, and implementing their own entrance test means that we have a situation in which grammar schools in Northern Ireland will no longer be part of the [executive’s] programme for Government structures.” He said education was damaged by uncertainty.