Post-Primary 'focus' on children's needs, Gardiner

Education Minister Barry Gardiner has again emphasised that the focus of new post-primary arrangements must be on the needs of the child.

The Minister was responding to a motion about new admissions arrangements for post-primary schools put down by the DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson in an adjournment debate at Westminster.

Responding to the Lagan Valley MP, the Minister said he believed that it was a parent’s right and responsibility to take the decision about the most appropriate school for their child.

“I trust parents to make that choice. It is for others to explain why they think they know better than the child’s parents,” he said.

The Minister said that the new admissions arrangements would be based on informed parental choice and that Pupil Profile would be central to this process.

“Each child is unique, they have different learning needs, they mature at different rates and their interests can change over time. Our school system must be able to recognise and respond to these needs,” he added.

However, Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble, has called on the Government to ditch the imposition of an education system in Northern Ireland in order to save the Province from he dubbed as "the comprehensive effect” experienced by the rest of the UK.

Speaking during the Westminster debate on Post-Primary Schools in the province Mr Trimble mocked the Government’s current plans pointing out that “someone once described comprehensivisation in England as the greatest crime committed against the English working class in the 20th century".

The Upper Bann MP said: "There is absolutely no doubt about that. Before comprehensivisation was introduced in England, performance in schools there was above that in Northern Ireland.

“It was only subsequent to comprehensivisation that performance levels and attainment in Northern Ireland got ahead of those in England, and they have moved steadily ahead. That is the comprehensive effect.”

The Consultation Document on New Admissions Arrangements for Post-Primary Schools was launched on 28th January 2005.

(MB/SP)