If transfer tests are suspended, then academic selection itself is in peril

At present the DUP education minister Peter Weir is saying that this will not happen.

His party leader, Arlene Foster, seemed to strike a different note in a radio interview when she said she shares concerns around lack of preparation work for transfer tests. It might just be that the first minister was adopting a different tone, as opposed to a difference of substance.

But if the transfer tests were suspended, it would be devastating blow to Northern Ireland’s grammar schools — one from which they might not recover.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, who has called for such suspension in the Catholic sector, would not be unhappy if academic selection never returned because his church strongly opposes selection — which is, obviously, an entirely legitimate stance.

If Catholic grammar schools were abolished, then some of the best performing state shools in the UK would cease to exist. While many all ability schools are of course excellent, those best performing Catholic schools would never return to such heights without a selective intake.

That, while a great pity, would ultimately be a matter for the Catholic education sector. If grammar schools as a whole disappear, however, then NI will become like England: selection will be based on wealth, not on any semblance of merit.

Academic selection, for all its imperfections, is vastly preferable to a wealth based system. The ruling class in the UK is now dominated by ex public school pupils, because of the disastrous consequences of abolishing grammar schools.

Yet the campaign to dismantle NI’s grammars is relentless, even if often below the radar. Any attempt to move to teacher assessment, for example, could lead to major variations in standards and so to injustices for unfairly assessed pupils.

It would be one day be followed by a demand that all selection is abolished, which would be a huge and retrograde step.