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Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I have received literature from different organisations and individuals, including Members of your Lordships' House, seeking my support for their particular stance on this issue. The measure before us this evening has been influenced by the report of an 11-strong working group led by the chairperson of the General Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, which was set up to provide advice on options for future arrangements for post-primary education. There has been much debate on this issue over several years, but little agreement on the way forward, with some widely diverging views being held, particularly, as we have heard tonight, on academic selection. The working group’s unanimous view was that a clear and early decision on the future direction of post-primary education in Northern Ireland was needed. The working group also took the view that the interests of the pupils should be paramount, and considered that while high-achieving pupils perform well, the system was failing too many other pupils. As a result of its review, the working group concluded that the status quo was not an option, not least because changes already taking place for demographic reasons were having, and would continue to have, a great impact on future provision. By the end of the decade it is projected that the number of pupils in post-primary schools will have fallen by some 8 per cent or 12,600 pupils. By 2040, it is projected that the 11 to 18-age population will have fallen by a quarter. There is already substantial over-capacity in the post-primary school estate, and in 2002 32 such schools had fewer than 300 pupils. Popular schools, including grammar schools, are likely to continue to fill to capacity, despite overall pupil numbers steadily declining, resulting in an increased number of small schools. Indeed, grammar schools are already admitting a wider-ability range of pupils, with an increasing number of pupils having the lower transfer grades C and D, which raises questions about the appropriateness of the curriculum being offered in the light of the broader range of ability of pupils in these schools. On the other side of the coin, a smaller proportion of pupils will transfer into non-grammar schools. The figure is, I think, about 60 per cent non-grammar to40 per cent grammar, leading to an even greater concentration of socially and educationally disadvantaged pupils in non-grammar schools and an increase in the number of schools with low enrolments, raising serious questions about their future viability. Small post-primary schools cannot provide their pupils with the same level of curriculum choice as larger schools, to the disadvantage of the pupils concerned. In such a situation, pupils’ choices are constrained by what is available, rather than enabling them to take courses that are relevant to their needs and aptitudes—and, indeed, as shown by the 2002 skills monitoring survey, relevant to the needs of employers as well. The working group proposed that schools to which pupils aged 11 should transfer should offer a broad general education, together with extension courses to widen and develop interests and which also reflect a school’s particular emphasis and ethos. At age 14 and beyond, schools would offer a wider variety of learning routes, whether in-house or in collaboration with other schools, the further education sector or other providers. The working group considered that age 14 was the earliest point at which major decisions involving greater choice for parents and pupils about the most appropriate learning routes or pathways should begin to be taken, whether vocational or academic or a mixture of both. I believe that the working group on whose report the draft order is based made a compelling case for change—change based not on closing grammar schools, which would no doubt largely maintain an academic rather than a vocational ethos, but on an increasing choice of curriculum and courses in post-primary education to meet the differing needs of pupils and the needs of employers; change based on recognising and addressing the adverse impact of democratic movements and change on schools and pupils alike; change based on recognising the pressures, unfairness and distortions on so many pupils and the primary school curriculum of the transfer test and academic selection; and, as the working group stated quite clearly, change on which positive decisions are needed now.