Cancellation of AQE transfer test is not a surprise but will have long term consequences

The cancellation of the AQE transfer test is not entirely a surprise. The pressure to scrap the exam had been massive and growing.

It was also very hard to justify children aged 10 sitting a major exam when much older, more mature and more robust children in their late teens were no longer sitting their own major exams, GCSEs and A-Levels.

There is a separate but related debate to be had as to whether or not scrapping those crucial exams for secondary school pupils was the right thing to do. It sounds like a kind thing to do in a pandemic, but will lead to its own problems and injustices in university admissions and job offers.

But the fact is that once GCSEs and A Levels had been pulled by the Conservative government in London, advocates of pressing ahead with exams in Northern Ireland lost their cover. England has very few grammar schools so there was no parallel debate in Westminster about holding 11+ exams.

Thus transfer tests have been scrapped in Northern Ireland and children will at least be spared the pressure of sitting such an exam while most other aspects of life are shut.

But England offers a wider precedent for secondary education that is highly relevant to the transfer of children from primary school to secondary school in Northern Ireland: it abolished its grammars. The comprehensive replacements have led to a more class stratified society, in which private schools now offer by far the best education there, ex pupils of which dominate the highest tiers of society.

Many of those politicians who demanded that this year’s transfer test be scrapped accused those who wanted the exams to proceed of letting their ideological position on academic selection to cloud their judgement at this time of medical emergency. In fact often the opposite was the case: anti grammar school fanatics were determined to scrap the tests.

As they well know that a return to transfer tests next year is far from guaranteed. Meanwhile, children who wanted this year to sit the tests might lose out on their preferred school on random grounds.

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