OPINION: Towards equality for all in local education
EDUCATION Minister CAITRIONA RUANE sets out her vision for the future of the Province's schools.
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. With a child-centred policy, we will see schools working together to ensure their pupils can avail of the widest range of educational pathways.
Furthermore, schools should be able to deliver tailored teaching for not just those pupils who are academically minded, but also those who are more gifted in the arts and creative areas, in sports or with other technical skills in areas like ICT.
Another recent policy, Every School a Good School, will help ensure that the standards are raised in each local school so that they can deliver the best in each subject they offer.
Of course, schools will need strong support going forward so that the existing high quality aspects of the current system can be built upon and complemented.
This is why the Department is rolling out a programme of capital investment in schools and youth services amounting to over 700 million by 2011, and over 3.5 billion by 2018.
An Area Based Planning approach will be at the heart of this investment, cutting out the current postcode lottery that exists in the standard of provision and reducing the gap between rural and urban areas.
Going even further, I want to start building now so that such issues can never arise again. A new Early Years Strategy will seek to maximise the ability of children to take on board new information right from the very youngest age.
Alongside the major programme of investment already mentioned above, the administration of education is also undergoing a transformation which will improve delivery and cut costs, helping to redirect more resources to the front line.
A new Education and Skills Authority (ESA), to be established from January 1, 2010, will encompass all of the functions of the current education and library boards, and more, under one umbrella and significantly reduce bureaucracy.
I passionately believe that by developing and embedding a progressive culture within our education system, in which every single child can reach their full potential, we will over time see significant improvements that we can all be proud of. Then we will truly have a world-class education system.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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