Arlene Foster calls for ‘piece of work’ on transfer tests

The 11-plus-style exams are currently due to go ahead in November and December this year, after they were pushed back by two weeks by the companies responsible.

The DUP leader has now said a “conversation” should take place involving schools, parents and the bodies that set the examinations.

She was speaking after the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin, called on Catholic grammar schools to “suspend” academic selection this year.

The Archbishop wrote to the schools to ask that they don’t use academic criteria to decide which pupils are accepted into the schools.

And in a radio interview broadcast by the BBC yesterday morning, Archbishop Martin described testing in the current climate as “cruel”.

The First Minister was asked about those comments on BBC Radio Ulster.

She said: “I share concerns in relation to the preparation work that normally goes in. As a mother of three children who have gone through the transfer test I know what that was like.

“I think there is a need for us in the Executive, and the education minister in particular, to work with parents, to work with schools and indeed the companies to get a sensible outcome.”

Asked directly whether that meant tests should be suspended this year, she said:

“What I’m saying is I think there needs to be a piece of work done in relation to all of this. We are living through extraordinary times. We’ve had to make decisions that we thought we would never have to make around society, the economy and the public health of the people of Northern Ireland. There certainly should be a conversation and, of course, people like Archbishop Martin and other civic leaders should be involved in that. But I think the Education Minister has a job of work to do in relation to schools.”

The Secretary of one of the leading teaching unions in Northern Ireland, meanwhile, backed the Archbishop’s calls.

The northern secretary of the Irish National Teacher’s Organisation (INTO), a union with thousands of members on both sides of the Irish border, described the current system of academic selection as “archaic”.

The secretary, Gerry Murphy, said: “Rather than looking for ways to facilitate this archaic system of social selection, there is an opportunity to adopt a new model.”