I have spent 30 years teaching in a selective education system; the past 25 of them in a grand Victorian school in Belfast. The college is modelled on the great public schools of England, with one surprising difference - it is largely funded by the state. Northern Ireland has many such institutions with fine academic results gained on the shoulders of a process of academic selection at 11. But one of Martin McGuinness’s first actions as education minister in the new Northern Ireland Assembly (NIA), was to establish the review body on post-primary education chaired by Gerry Burns. Its brief was to consider the future of the 11-plus and selection.

Mr Burns’s report was published in Belfast on October 24, the day that an act of decommissioning permitted the return of the NIA. If the hope of the assembly is to reconfigure politics in the north of Ireland, so the Burns report aims to reconstitute the educational system. The larger agenda is to bring about radical social change.

We expected the 11-plus to go (TES, October 26). But we didn’t know what would replace it. Burns surprised us with his recommendation of pupil profiles developed through primary education which will help parents choose an appropriate secondary pathway for their children. The only criteria will be proximity to the school, the presence of an older sibling, or a parent on the staff. Academic attainment cannot be taken into consideration - secondary schools will not see the profiles until they have accepted the child.

Suddenly, schools that regarded selection based on academic attainment as central to their ethos are struggling with their reactions. Every August, CEA, the Northern Irish curriculum and examination authority, has proclaimed the superior academic performances of students in Northern Ireland grammar schools. Now Mr Burns is suggesting that schools of all types should co-operate to form collegiates, directed by a board of principals on which each serving principal would serve. Each board would ensure equality of opportunity and range of schools, and raise standards.

Driving the vision is the theory that each child has a range of abilities - and the conviction that learning and the curriculum need to reach all these. But there is also a rights-driven agenda of equality of opportunity, social inclusion and a belief in the role of education in promoting a culture of tolerance. Mr Burns’s proposals are based on a belief that schools can make a difference to society, but his social democratic vision does not accord with everyone.

Most of my contemporaries are products of a competitive system that offered us opportunities unknown to our parents. We were lifted from working-class beginnings because we accepted a system that offered us “teaching”, if not always “learning” - and other things. And it is that tradition of developing the wider individual that embues the education of most grammar school pupils today. I acknowledge that this selective system has failed more children than it has served. I feel uncomfortable when I hear of the lack of opportunities that mark the educational experiences of many young people in Northern Ireland. Poor resourcing, poor environment and inappropriate curricula all reduce the quality of their education. This is what Mr Burns wants to change. It is what Martin McGuinness wants to change: having left school at 14, he has his own reasons.

And this is the reality that Mr Burns has fudged. The grammar schools form a powerful set of vested interests that can point to quality of delivery and outcome. Despite the report’s insistence that no school will need to abandon its ethos, there is a fear that an inability to control intake at 11-plus will drive down standards. But the report tries to redefine what standards will be relevant. A few grammar schools are rumoured to be looking at breaking away from any imposed system to establish themselves as independent.

If this is to be avoided, opponents of selection will have to find a way to open a proper dialogue with the traditional grammar schools. But there is a danger that Mr Burns has denied this possibility by couching his proposals in terms of equality, rights and inclusiveness. Taking on such arguments carries the risk of losing the debate before you begin.

Neill Morton is a senior teacher at Campbell College, Belfast