McGuinness speaks out about new transfer system

Education Minister, Martin McGuinness has said the new transfer system to replace the 11+ must not be stacked in the favour of higher income children.

According to recent statistics, only one in eight children from socially deprived areas in Belfast progressed to grammar school.

In the Belfast area, the proportion of pupils in the most disadvantaged primary schools obtaining a grammar school place is 2 per cent in the Shankill, 4 per cent in West Belfast, 5 per cent in East Belfast, 8 per cent in North Belfast and 15 per cent in South Belfast.

Speaking at a conference called by representatives of the five Belfast Partnership Boards on Tuesday April 9, Mr McGuinness said: “These figures demolish the myth that academic selection provides a ladder to success for working class and disadvantaged children, particularly in Protestant communities.”

Gerry Doherty, Chief Executive of South Belfast Partnership said that following extensive local research by the Belfast Boards between November 2000 and February 2001, they uncovered a collective despondency among parents in the most disadvantaged areas of Belfast. He said they found parents were resigned to the fact that their children would be branded as failures not just at 11 but through all the key stages of their lives.

“Parents felt that the existing system is socially divisive, stacked against working class children,” Mr Doherty said.

“They also felt that the test concentrates on a limited range of skills and that children should not be divided at the age of 11 but should be given more time and opportunity to determine where their natural talents lie.”

The Burns review of Northern Ireland's education system recommended an end to the controversial 11-plus transfer test. The exam, used as a selection test for pupils in primary seven, determines the type of school to which children will transfer.

The 300-page report by the Post Primary Review body, chaired by Gerry Burns, was published last October, and suggested the 11-plus test be scrapped within two years.

The Education Minister announced in mid-February that he was extending the consultation deadline to June 28 2002.

(AMcE)