Let's move forward to a better education for all children

NICVA

£2.20

Consultation on new legislation to abolish selection at the age of 11 finishes on 7 March. Paul McGill explains why the voluntary and community sector should actively support the changes.

The world is moving forward and so should education. We have the opportunity in Northern Ireland to create an education system that will meet the needs of all children and young people and create a solid foundation for a learning society. We do not have that at present. Northern Ireland's system has important strengths but it also has weaknesses, chiefly the large number of people dismissed as failures at an early age.

We can build on the strengths of the system, including all-ability primary schools that give high quality education to most children. That means more investment in pre-school education and children's services, not just in education but in related areas like health. It means improvements in primary education in disadvantaged areas where levels of achievement for very many children are too low.

Ending selection at 11 will not abolish inequality or disadvantage but it is an essential first step. We can improve choice and flexibility for all pupils, building on the strengths of both grammar and secondary schools and the small number of comprehensive schools through partnership.

Moreover, if schools have to work together to offer a full range of choices for young people, we have the potential for far more intensive cross community work than we have now. Catholic, Protestant and integrated schools can pool their resources to ensure students have the mix of academic and vocational courses they need.
We should not shut off possibilities for young children; rather we should ensure that they continue to learn and develop and gradually take decisions, along with their parents, on the sort of education and training they would like and be suited to.

CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT SELECT AT 11
It is not possible to select children at the age of 11. They simply do not fall into two neat groups of academic and non-academic children. Children are different and unique; all have a mix of aptitudes, abilities and intelligences. Some develop later than others - too many children have failed the 11-plus and gone on to high academic achievement. The 11-plus is discredited but so is academic selection of any sort at such a young age. It has always failed - when we had IQ tests, verbal reasoning tests, tests of English, maths and science and every other form of selection.

Ironically one of the arguments used by supporters of selection is that it would be unfair to working class children to deprive them of the chance to go to grammar school. The reality is exactly the opposite. Our system brands most of these young children as failures and is morally unacceptable.

A whole string of research studies have shown that middle class children are far more likely to pass the tests than working class children. Among those on borderline grades, middle class children are more likely to get grammar school places than working class children with the same grades; they are better at working the system.

Nothing has changed. A study published in 2000 showed that 84.4% of the children of professional families went to grammar school; if the father had an office job, 79.1% of their children went to grammar schools. By contrast, only 23.5% of factory workers' children went to grammar schools and a mere 13.2% of children whose father was unemployed. (The pattern of performance at GCSE, Peter Daly and Ian Shuttleworth, QUB, in The Effects of the Selective System of Secondary Education in Northern Ireland, DE, 2000.)

We see the same inequality in the proportion of pupils from poor backgrounds in the two sectors, as defined by entitlement to free school meals. Figures for 2005/06 show that secondary schools have four times more of these disadvantaged pupils (28% of all their students) than grammar schools (7%). In the Protestant sector the inequality is even greater, approximately seven times more children are entitled to free school meals in secondary than in grammar schools.

A small number of working class children do get to grammar school but we make it very difficult for them. Thousands of able working class children are being written off at the age of 11 because of selection, regardless of what sort of tests we use. We need to move forward to create a system that is fair to all children.

Success and failure in education at an early age are self-fulfilling. Most people who do well at 11 proceed to good GCSE and A level grades and enter higher education. Most people who fail the 11 plus get mediocre GCSEs and no A levels. For example, 80.3% of grammar students leave with two or more A levels and another 13.4% have five or more good GCSE passes (grades A*-C). By contrast 18.3% of secondary leavers have two or more A levels and 18.5% have five good GCSEs.

In summary, 63.2% of secondary pupils leave without good examination passes but this is true of only 6.4% of grammar leavers. So the education system based on selection at 11 perpetuates disadvantage and discourages mobility. Looking at all leavers (from secondary and grammar schools), 41.2% do not have acceptable qualifications - our education system is far from the world leader that supporters of selection suggest.

KEEP OPTIONS OPEN
We must create opportunities for all children to succeed instead of putting barriers in their way. Northern Ireland is facing a new economy needing new and greater skills by far more people. It cannot compete in a global economy by creating low-skill jobs, only by moving dramatically up the value chain.

At present NI has a very high proportion of people aged 16-65 with severe literacy and numeracy problems -- 24% of adults are on the lowest level of prose literacy and more than half (54%) are defined as functionally illiterate. This is closely related to life chances. For example, people out of work are almost twice as likely as employed people to be on the lowest literacy level; conversely people in work are three times more likely to be on one of the two highest literacy levels than those with the highest incomes. (Sweeney et al, Adult Literacy in Northern Ireland, NISRA, 1998).

Low levels of skills are also found among Northern Ireland adults. If our selective education has been the envy of the world since it was introduced in 1948, we would not expect 24% of the working age population to have no qualifications, far worse than the 15% in England and Scotland and 17% in Wales (Labour Force Survey 2003).

There can be little doubt that the stigma of the 11-plus is a factor in the anti-education culture in NI. Failure breeds failure; too many people believe that education is not for them eg there is a clear correlation between achievement at GCSE and staying on in education, as the graph shows.

Instead of hard and fast decisions at the early age of 11, we should have flexibility and greater choice of courses so that young people can have a range of academic and vocational courses and the option of moving from school to school. Choices can become firmer at the ages of 14 and 16 whilst still retaining flexibility. Choice and flexibility should be actively promoted by the Department of Education through support and funding incentives.

DESTROYING SUCCESSFUL GRAMMAR SCHOOLS?
Not one grammar school will shut down if the proposals go ahead. They will play an important part with secondary schools and further education colleges in broadening choice for all children in both vocational and academic subjects. Grammar schools can provide particular expertise in academic subjects and will be able to offer two-thirds of their options in the academic field; their students can benefit from additional vocational options offered by the school or by a partner school.
Government is not dictating how these partnerships will work. Local schools and colleges, including grammar schools, can develop systems that best serve the needs of their students.

THE WORLD IS CHANGING, SO SHOULD EDUCATION
We cannot retain an ossified, socially stratified school system suited for the 1950s or one in which very many people are turned off from lifelong learning. We need one that will promote the skills of all citizens and put NI on top of the league in skills, one that will encourage entrepreneurship and end false distinctions between academic and vocational study.
The draft Order goes in the right direction though many other actions are needed to break down social class discrimination and create a fair society and a learning society. It would be wrong for those who support the proposed changes to imagine that inequality will disappear.
That is why NICVA has consistently supported concerted action by government to create and implement an anti-poverty strategy encompassing income, employment, health, housing, education, community development and all the complex social factors that perpetuate inequality in education and other aspects of society.

The documents can be obtained from the Department of Education on 028 9127 9296 or www.deni.gov.uk. Responses to the draft Order should be sent by 7 March 2006 to the Post Primary Support Team, Department of Education, Rathgael House, Room 602, 43 Balloo Road, Bangor BT19 7PR.