Proposals the start of process to deliver the best education opportunities for all our children

By Gerry Kelly
Education Minister Caitriona Ruane this week brought forward proposals to transform our outdated education system to make it fit for the challenges of the 21st century, able to deliver the best education opportunities for all our children.
Education is the key to the future of our children and I believe the vast majority of people back the minister in her attempt to get it right.
Since Martin McGuinness announced the abolition of the 11+ in 2001, the stance of political Unionism has been subvert any effort to dispense with this elitist and unjust system
The two unionist parties have so far blocked all attempts to get an agreement on a modern education system since May 2007.
Cáitriona Ruane twice brought forward papers outlining proposals and seeking Executive discussion and endorsement. The DUP prevented any discussion or agreement on this issue
The DUP position on academic selection is not based on the needs of children but entirely and solely on Sinn Fein’s opposition to it.
I am disappointed that no one in that party has spoken up for the disadvantaged unionist communities, which suffer greatest from the current system of academic selection and rejection.
Academic selection is not in the interests of children, teachers and parents. We should not lose sight of the fact that the 11+ for decades condemned the majority of children as failures.
The 11+ was wrong. I welcome the ending of that system which was designed 60 years ago and which is clearly not fit for the modern world.
Caitriona Ruane first proposed a three-year phasing out of academic selection but in the absence of agreement she has now outlined the criteria which will govern the transition from primary school to post primary education.
The 11+ is gone and with it the unfair pressure on ten and eleven year-olds. Children in primaries 6 & 7 will be taught the new curriculum without the pressure on teachers and pupils alike to prepare for the test.
The new criteria for schools will be based on geography, family ties, community and social disadvantage and most children will go to the nearest school.
This is a radical departure from the current system which fails 40 per cent of our children, children in receipt of free school meals for example were only half as likely to achieve five GCSEs as other children.
Academic selection has discriminated against the most disadvantaged communities and perpetuated deprivation.
In the current year, 95% of children from primary schools in the Malone Road area went to grammar schools compared to 26% from Shankill primaries and only 20% from New Lodge primaries.
Sinn Féin believes that this education apartheid has to come to an end. And we are not alone in this.
All the teachers unions support and end to academic selection, as do the Catholic bishops who have also come out strongly against the inequality of the current system.
In addition, various reports since the decision to abolish the 11+, including Burns and Costello have recommended that no school should be permitted to use academic selection criteria for children’s admission to second level education.
Parents are worried about the transfer arrangements. The grammar school lobby and some school principals who have a vested interest in maintaining inequality are feeding a culture of fear and insecurity among both parents and children.
Indeed some Catholic school principals appear to be working to a DUP agenda.
In the past week many parents received letters from school principals asking them to sign sample enclosed letters of protest to the Minister of Education, Caitriona Ruane.
But the current shake-up of education is about much more than the abolition of the 11+.
As part of her radical overhaul of education Cáitriona Ruane has brought in the revised curriculum and the Every School A Good School policy.
She has begun to address the imbalance in funding between primary and secondary schools and set up the Educational Skills Authority, which will free up resources for frontline teaching.
These changes will provide for a 21st century education system which delivers for all our children, the academically gifted as well as those who have other talent.
All children have the right to equality of access to education.
I would ask everyone to carefully examine the proposals the minister has made, to embrace the concept of positive change, and to work with us in the exciting work of transforming our archaic education system into a modern system able to offer our children the best education in the world.