14th May 2008
One step forward, two steps back
After twelve months of uncertainty Caitriona Ruane appears on the verge of turning the clocks back six years.
Can I declare an interest. I have an eight year old son (P4) and was looking forward to him being spared what I consider to be an outdated and infective judgment of a child’s potential - the eleven plus.
During the five years of suspension the New Labour government etched a consensus on the governing principles on selection from the major stakeholders and the political parties. Until St Andrews everyone accepted that selection at eleven was going, there was also an increasing acceptance that the demographic shifts all around us required a fundamental rethink and that a collegiate model was a possibility. That was twelve months ago. Today the minister is reported to be on the verge of reintroducing selection at eleven.
In many ways Ms Ruane inherited a good roadmap and needed to set about strengthening support around the already accepted principles as well as putting meat on the bones of the new system. Instead she retreated to 2002 rhetoric, appeared to avoid the stakeholders and set herself on a war-footing with the Education Committee in the Assembly.
The long and short of it is that the common ground which had been gained has been lost and the principles which had been accepted are now being rejected. It was never going to be easy but that is no excuse for any minister who was handed a solid set of principles on which to build. There is very much this Sinn Fein minister could learn from the way in which her direct rule British colleague, Angela Smyth handled the issue during her time in charge. So far it’s been a walkover for New Labour over SF.
My son and his schoolmates deserve better. They are starting a new new curriculum which will not prepare them for selective testing at the end of primary school. In fact it has been designed to do quite the opposite as it is based on a process on continuous evaluation of the child’s progress. I guess teachers everywhere will be arriving a work confused and concerned about how they can support their students in the coming years. Many will believe they are being used as pawns in this increasingly poor case study in policy reform. I will study her full proposals in great detail when they emerge at the end of this week and would encourage every parent to do so also.
[...] don’t want to rehearse again my concerns about what Northern Ireland’s Education Minister Caitriona Ruane has done by way of a U turn [...]