Written evidence from Collegiate Grammar
School
I am writing to you in your capacity as Chairman
of the Northern Ireland Select Committee to convey my deep anxieties
about pending changes in our system of post-primary education.
These changes as detailed in the report of the
Costello Post-Primary Review Working Group in January 2004 represent
major changes for our education system in Northern Ireland. As
such they will have a significant and I believe highly detrimental
impact on the educational landscape for present and future generations
of our young people.
However my prime reason for writing to you is
not to outline these concerns in detail but rather to take the
opportunity to bring before you and your Committee the deep sense
of unease I share with many in the educational and wider community
about the way in which these changes are being implemented.
As I write, documents requiring preparation
for the implementation of these changes are sitting on my desk
demanding my attention. These documents include a clearly outlined
time frame and we, as a school community, are being asked to engage
our will and energies in their outworking. Yet to date there has
been no attempt to consult with the educational community and
the wider public on these proposals as a whole, only on the new
transfer arrangements the results of which consultation we are
still awaiting. It is also worth noting that these proposals for
the new transfer arrangements in Costello took no cognisance of
the results of the household survey commissioned by the Department
of Education in 2002 in which parents and teachers by a majority
of 2-1 called for the retention of some form of academic selection.
I am left therefore with a profound sense of dissatisfaction both
at the apparent disregard for the will of the very people who
will be affected by these far-reaching changes and the unseemly
haste with which the Government wishes to impose them on the educational
and wider community.
It is also most disconcerting that there has
been no forum in which open and honest debate about the merits
or demerits of these proposals could take place. Now that the
prospect of a return to devolved government is more hopeful I
am bemused at the Government's haste to press on with this legislation
when there is a real prospect that these crucial changes could
be properly debated at the heart of the community who will be
affected by them.
I indicated at the outset that I do not wish
to outline in detail my objections to the Costello proposals:
however as Principal of a girls' grammar school whose pupils come
from a diversity of social backgrounds across a widespread rural
hinterland as well as from within the town boundary I highlight
one major issue which will crucially affect the young people in
the local area if the proposed admission arrangements stand. Under
these new arrangements where geographical proximity is the crucial
factor in admissions decisions girls who live at a distance from
the school, irregardless of their educational needs, will inevitably
be denied access to a grammar school education. Equality of opportunity
and access and a child centred education, the proposed aims of
this new system, ring hollow in the ears of their parents and
I share in their deep misgivings.
In voicing these concerns I do not wish to imply
that there is no need for change in our educational system. I
do however believe that the process which is currently sweeping
us along in its relentless wake is an inherently flawed one and
one which ignores the need to engage hearts and minds, a crucial
factor in the management of any worthwhile change. I cannot believe
that this is in the interests of the young people whom we serve.
E Armstrong
Principal
17 October 2005
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