Scrapping the transfer test this year could be the end of grammar schools in Northern Ireland

In an opportunistic manoeuvre, Northern Ireland’s children have been subjected to yet further hysteria and chaos, despite having received the positive news just last Friday with the AQE press release which assured that the test would proceed, beginning on Saturday.

For months, public figures have been vocal in their demands for clarity on the test issue.

Isn’t it strange, therefore, that in the immediate aftermath of receiving such clarity, the very same figures would take to media platforms to lambast the very clarity they craved?

The SDLP’s Daniel McCrossan, Alliance’s Chris Lyttle, and Sinn Fein’s John O’Dowd, together with Children’s Commissioner Koulla Yiasouma, and representation from teachers’ unions from Mark Langhammer and Dr Graham Gault all commented.

They all, to varying degrees, have outlined their opposition to the tests going ahead, and called for contingencies to be offered by the grammar schools for admissions to their schools.

• Ben Lowry: Covid will be used to undermine grammar schools

They herald the apparent leadership of the 11 grammar schools which outlined that they will use ‘Covid-contingency’ criteria for school admission in place of the transfer test this year.

The BBC’s Robbie Meredith outlined that the alternative admissions criteria went no further than: application to sit a transfer test this year, sibling attending the school, parent having attended the school, and proximity to the school.

These are social selection criteria which, if adopted across the Province, would create a year of comprehensive education for Northern Ireland with irreversible consequences.

It would open the door to the demolition of the grammar school system by its opportunistic opponents.

None of the aforementioned commentators have any genuine claim to objectivity in the current academic selection debate (given their obvious pre-Covid and post-Covid objection to it) nor any right to dominate the side of this debate which claims to “put children first”.

Champion for Mental Health, Professor Siobhan O’Neill, outlined that the test was putting additional unnecessary pressure on children this year.

What might she make of Daniel McCrossan’s comments on yesterday morning’s Nolan show, when he used language like “it is not safe” and that the test will “risk people’s families”, claiming that “these children, when they leave test centres will carry infection back to vulnerable family members”?

Does this not unnecessarily increase the stress placed on children going to sit a test in four days’ time, when a public official claims that their doing so will lead to them putting their own families at risk?

When I contacted AQE chief executive, Dr Darrin Barr, for a comment on this, he outlined the following reassurance: “We have met every public health requirement, and more, that has been asked of us to ensure that parents can feel safe to send their children to complete the test.”

He outlined further that detailed risk assessments have been completed by a group of principals of the test centres, in line with public health advice, to produce general advice for all test centres which was then tailored to each specific centre based on the logistics of that school.

My message to parents is clear: in the midst of a pandemic, we are all clearly at risk. It is incumbent on us all to mitigate against those risks, to ensure a more positive future for everyone once this chaos passes.

Using children in the midst of that chaos is unforgiveable, and something which public ‘leaders’ ought to avoid in pursuing their own ideological obsessions.

• Dr William Kitchen is an academic and author

• Ben Lowry: Covid will be used to undermine grammar schools

• Dr William Kitchen: Grammar schools in Northern Ireland are right to stand by academic selection

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