BY Einstein's standards our education system represents a form of madness. He said that doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result constitutes insanity.
The education system here has been doing the same thing for over 70 years. As a result, we have what leading educationalist, Robert Salisbury, describes as Europe's widest gap between qualified and unqualified school leavers.
Research shows that this gap is influenced by social class. Forty per cent of secondary school children receive free school meals, as opposed to 14 per cent in grammar schools.
The history of underachievement is littered with reports, promises, policies and expert committees, all resolving to tackle the problem.
So, true to Einstein's insanity theory, education minister, Peter Weir, recently repeated the same thing, by establishing an expert panel. It will "examine the links between educational underachievement and social disadvantage" and produce an action plan.
While the panel consists of highly qualified, well-meaning and dedicated people, it is generally recognised that establishing a public sector committee to produce an action plan is an unsophisticated form of occupational therapy.
What the minister does not recognise (although hopefully the panel will) is that he is not facing an educational problem. He faces a social problem which has educational consequences.
Let me give you an example. I spent a significant part of my working life overseeing, among other things, community education in Belfast. I have seen expert panels come and go. I have read the reports (and contributed to some of them) and in the past 40 years I have seen nothing new.
One evening in the mid-1990s, I went to a strongly loyalist area to present basic education certificates to adult learners who had been failed by the school system. Outside the building, flag-waving demonstrators (some aligned with Mr Weir's party) were protesting about a constitutional grievance, real or imagined.
Inside I presented certificates to 110 women. I was the only male in the room. The local men were outside waving flags. The passion for education was palpable among these working class Protestant women, who recognised its value not just for them, but for their children (especially helping them with their homework).
But their social and economic aspirations were swamped by that same flag waving which fuels the DUP's election successes.
One community education tutor told me that while visiting a young mother in her home to help with her learning, she was told, "If my partner comes in, say you are from the social services. Don't mention education, or I'll get a hammering when you leave." How will a panel of experts solve that problem?
Educational underachievement has several causes, many of which extend beyond school into the home and community environments. But one classroom factor significantly influences underachievement: academic selection.
Social disadvantage generates educational underachievement. We have the highest level of child poverty in the UK. So why do we exclude disadvantaged children through academic selection and then set up a panel to explain why they fail to achieve?
Minister Weir says that examining the impact of academic selection on educational inequality is "a distraction" and a focus on "the wrong issue". He insists, "We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right."
How can it be moral to brand 11-year olds as failures (or is that DUP morality)?
The concept of underachievement implies the existence of achievement. But a Stormont report last year identified "a lack of basic employability skills amongst graduates".
So what do achievers actually achieve - and what does the education system want them to achieve?
To answer that one, we need a complete overhaul of the entire nature and direction of our education system.
That will take a while. In the short-term, we must tackle child poverty and abolish academic selection at the age of 11.
Retaining selection suggests that the minister does not want an explanation for underachievement. He just wants his party's educational prejudices confirmed. You do not have to be an expert to work that one out.
