While there are sincere and informed voices on all sides in the debate over post-primary transfer arrangements, it has been clear for some time that momentum is shifting decisively away from the staging of private tests.
There was widespread relief last summer when a range of grammar schools, mainly in the Catholic sector, said that they were temporarily suspending the use of academic criteria for admissions, due to serious concerns over the coronavirus crisis.
However, to the surprise of many observers, the Association for Quality Education (AQE), announced on Friday that it intended to proceed with a series of independent tests beginning this Saturday, January 9, even though primary school pupils are being taught remotely throughout this week.
There is obvious alarm about the possible consequences if hundreds of children from different household and classroom bubbles mix together when taking the 11-plus-style papers organised by the AQE in grammar schools.
Although the AQE has said that the health and wellbeing of pupils and staff during the pandemic is its priority, there will still be a strong sense that an unnecessary risk is being taken by proceeding with the tests.
The chair of the Stormont education committee, Alliance’s Chris Lyttle, spoke for many when he said on Saturday that there was an urgent need for the DUP education minister Peter Weir, a long standing supporter of the selection process, as well as the AQE and the Post Primary Transfer Consortium, to definitively clarify how the tests can proceed within legal compliance of the Covid-19 regulations.
Professor Siobhan O’Neill, who holds the post of Northern Ireland’s interim mental health champion, offered even more direct criticism, saying she was ‘shocked’ at the AQE’s move.
She raised the wider implications for children, and said it was ‘unacceptable’ that they should face additional fear and worry when they were already under significant pressure because of the pandemic.
These were powerful interventions, and they came after a week when Northern Ireland recorded its highest ever daily number of coronavirus cases and the figures have still continued to rise.
It is extremely difficult to see how the transfer tests can be regarded as an essential commitment in the present circumstances, and the organisers should at the very least be prepared to delay a final decision on their plans until later in the year.
