NI grammars call for selection exam

6 Sep 07
A row has broken out between Northern Ireland's grammar schools and the Department of Education over the future of academic selection.

07 September 2007

A row has broken out between Northern Ireland's grammar schools and the Department of Education over the future of academic selection. The last sitting of the 11 Plus exam is scheduled to take place next year, but a new system for school admissions has yet to be agreed for use from 2009.

Now the grammar schools are threatening to produce their own common entrance exam if a revised method of academic selection is not put in place quickly.

The grammar schools' preference is for some form of primary school exit test, said Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, speaking in his role as chair of a pro-grammar school lobby group, the Association for Quality Education. Bloomfield – who also chairs the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, a grammar school, and is a former head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service – told Public Finance: 'As a fallback position we favour some form of common entrance test. We don't want to see all schools doing their own thing.'

A spokesman for the Department of Education said that the Association for Quality Education would be meeting the minister later this month and the future of academic selection would be discussed then.

In a statement, Education Minister Caitríona Ruane added: 'I don't believe that academic selection is the way forward. It has created disadvantage in our system and has failed many of our children.' She added: 'Let's not create an artificial panic… There will not be a free-for-all where schools set their own tests.'

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