Alex Kane: Transfer tests are another totally avoidable mess by the Executive

That was October 7. My Twitter-linked email account was soon stuffed with messages from principals of grammar and primary schools asking me to keep them updated if I heard anything which might be of help. A friend’s son – who works for the department – advised me not to hold my breath, adding (I don’t think he was being entirely mischievous), ‘if you do hear something, maybe you could let us know.’

I heard nothing. I heard nothing in response to a News Letter column on November 2 (We parents are wondering what will happen to our transfer year children if there are no selection tests). Yet here we are, three months since my original tweet, and a trickle (which may well become a flow or even a flood) of schools linked to the AQE say they will neither be using the test this year for admission, nor allowing their premises to be used for sitting the test.

That trickle, by the way, began within hours of the AQE issuing a statement cancelling the tests it planned to hold in January; followed within hours by another statement setting February 27 as the day for the sitting of just one paper, but only if Covid circumstances permitted it. It was a classic can-kicking exercise, couched in a clarity similar to mud and with still no plan for what would happen if the test doesn’t – as looks increasingly likely – take place at all.

My daughter, Lilah-Liberty, is entered for the AQE. She’s already pretty miffed it was cancelled in December and again last week. She has no certainty it will happen at all. Even if it does happen she has no certainty that the school facilitating the test will still be part of the process. She has no certainty that the schools she has been considering will all be doing the test, either, meaning that differing admission criteria could make listing them as one of her choices utterly pointless. She has no idea what happens if the test is cancelled. She has no idea how late in the day that cancellation could come.

Excuse my French, but that’s a complete b******s. A b******s over which the Executive and the Minister of Education appear to have little or no control. Indeed, Peter Weir admitted last week that he didn’t have the power to intervene in what is, to all intents and purposes, a private arrangement between the AQE and its client schools. But he certainly would have the power to intervene if – and, as I say, it now seems inevitable – the AQE is cancelled in a few weeks time.

His department is the primary source of funding for each of the AQE grammar schools and that alone gives him the right to step in. If the AQE takes place in February it will not involve all 34 schools: which raises enormous problems for some parents. If the AQE doesn’t take place at all and the schools don’t agree on consistent, uniform criteria, there will still be huge problems for parents.

If there is no formal academic selection test this year and schools rely entirely on their own criteria then hundreds, maybe thousands, of children already entered for the test will be failed by the system. Peter Weir has a duty to step in right now and make the necessary decisions.

I’ll say it again: it’s a b******s. One of the tweeted replies to my original tweet in October, from David Kerr, noted: ‘This is a huge issue and it requires decisive, proactive leadership now. Parents need to know what is Plan A, Plan B (test in primary schools) and Plan C (no test). Needs a timeline for when decisions will be taken. No need for there to be any confusion around this.’ David was absolutely right. There was no need and there is no need for the present confusion.

Let me add a personal reflection here. I’m not one of those people who believes a grammar school is the be all and end all of education. The grammar system was good for me and I benefited enormously from my time as a pupil at the Royal School, Armagh. I was pushed hard and challenged daily. And I mixed with boys who hadn’t passed the 11+ but who still went on to university and good careers because they were also pushed hard.

But I know that far too many children were and are failed by the education system they experienced: many leaving with qualifications far below what they were capable of achieving and some leaving with no qualifications at all. That’s a problem which hasn’t been properly addressed by the Executive.

Actually, it troubles me greatly that the Executive has left one sector unaddressed; farmed out another into what is tantamount to private hands; and fiddles about with something described as ‘shared education’ because it can’t agree on genuine integration.

I don’t know what will happen to Lilah-Liberty over the next few months. I can’t help feeling I’ve let her down (although I’ve no regrets about opting for academic selection). But of one thing I am certain: yet again, on a crucial issue, the Executive has made a total and predictable b******s.