RADICAL proposals to reform education in Northern Ireland, announced this week, include scrapping the 11-plus and setting up a collegiate system of schools.
The Burns Review Group, set up as an independent think-tank, launched its long-awaited report on Wednesday on the future of post-primary education.
The report calls for the abolition of the 11-plus and the ending of academic selection. This would be replaced by a system based on “informed parental preference”.
The report also proposes the development of a “pupil profile” assessment system plus the creation of a collegiate system of schools from Year 5.
The collaborative network of schools will be made up of 20 collegiate groups - a mixture of Catholic, Protestant, Irish-speaking and integrated schools.
Gerry Burns, pro-chancellor of the University of Ulster and chairman of the review body, said: “The 11-plus tests are divisive, damage self-esteem, disrupt teaching and learning and reinforce inequality of opportunity. The collegiate system will assist in the encouragement of a social cohesion within which diversity in our society will be enriching and not divisive.”
Martin McGuinness, education minister for Northern Ireland, welcomed the report, but said the 11-plus tests will still be held this year and in autumn 2002.
The report was also welcomed by the teaching unions, but was criticised by the Democratic Unionists Party. A spokesman said it could turn the education system into a “costly, bureaucratic shambles”.
Consultation on the report will end on May 17, 2002.
