THE current global economic downturn has raised many issues, not the least of which is the need for every member of society to be equipped to achieve their full potential and maximise their life chances.

Numeracy and literacy are basic requirements of the vast majority of jobs, and yet many local children, often from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, are reaching working age without these key skills. Indeed last year almost 11,000 children, around 43 per cent, left school without five good GCSEs including English and Maths. The vast majority of these young people are from working class Catholic and Protestant families.

This cannot continue. I want to establish an education system which works for all children and which will raise the standards of literacy, numeracy and other essential skills within the entire population. A system which will foster a more dynamic and vibrant society in which every person can succeed.

Right now, my Department is implementing a wide-ranging set of reforms, based on the principles of equality and entitlement, which will help realise this.

At the forefront of the improvements has been the abolition of the 11-plus. State-sponsored testing of this kind, at such a young age, has served only to foster divisions in society by labelling over half our children as failures.

I recently came across a newspaper article proclaiming in a page one headline "Moves soon to replace qualifying". The article went on to report that: "The .. government is now moving fast to find a satisfactory replacement for the controversial 11-plus examination." The article also reported on the strain caused to parents and children by the 11-plus. The fascinating thing about this article is that it was published on September 8, 1964 in the News Letter.

I am delighted to see that far fewer parents have decided to enter their children for tests this year than last year. The Commission for Catholic Education has taken a decision to end selection within its sector. Two more grammar schools have chosen bilateralism this year, a further 14 have decided to use academic selection for only part of their intake and there are reports that a number of schools have decided that they will not be testing at all next year. This presents a clear picture that the unfair system of selection/rejection is finally coming to an end. We are already planning for a post-selective future in our education system.

There are many other reforms I am bringing forward in parallel with Transfer 2010 designed to help tackle underachievement and raise standards in all sections of the education community.

One of the key measures is the new Entitlement Framework, which enshrines the needs of all children equally and will be a statutory requirement from 2013.

The Framework promotes an ethos of entitlement which will ensure that the opportunities available to all children at ages 14 and 16 will be broader and more coherent than ever before.