PUP Protestant education report in call to scrap academic selection

The report by the PUP is critical about how some unionists view education

A new report into educational underachievement among Protestant working-class children calls for academic selection to be scrapped.

Firm Foundations has been published by the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP).

It contains more than 20 proposals to improve education in Protestant, unionist and loyalist communities.

A Community Relations Council study has previously shown that Protestant boys on free school meals are among the lowest achieving groups in the UK.

The PUP report says that "political will and action are essential and have too often been lacking" in tackling educational underachievement.

It provides action points in five main areas: Early years education, parental and community involvement, school leadership, school governance and academic selection.

Scrutiny

Until academic selection at age 11 is abandoned, the report says that grammar school places should be capped at 35% of the total number of post-primary pupils.

According to Department of Education figures, about 44% of post-primary pupils currently go to grammar schools in Northern Ireland.

Among the other recommendations in the wide-ranging report are:

• More rigorous scrutiny of how teachers and principals perform, including "improvement plans, and where necessary, dismissal".

• A recruitment drive for school governors from working-class communities.

• Schools to be made more widely available for community use.

• Better careers guidance in schools, and the introduction of vocational subjects to the curriculum at year 11.

• Health visitors to deliver educational advice to new parents.

• More promotion of breastfeeding as it "is associated with optimal physical and intellectual development".

The report is also critical about how some unionists view education, saying that "in unionist communities a change in culture to embrace education is needed".

"This contrasts with attitudes in disadvantaged nationalist communities where many have, with demonstrable success, viewed and availed of education as a right and a means of upward social mobility," it says.

While the DUP's education spokesman Peter Weir said his party agreed with some of the conclusions the PUP had drawn, he criticised the report's focus on academic selection.

"Selection on merit has been a driver of social mobility. Its removal will do little to improve educational attainment," he said.

"What we would have is a race to buy homes in the catchment areas of the best schools, a race in which the working class would be the biggest losers."

Collapse

Work on Firm Foundations was originally instigated by the Unionist Forum, after flag protests following the decision by Belfast City Council to restrict the flying of the union flag on Belfast City Hall in 2012.

A working group, chaired by the PUP's Dr John Kyle, was set up to examine educational underachievement and to recommend action to be taken.

The PUP's Dr John Kyle chaired the working group that examined educational underachievement in the Protestant, unionist and loyalist community

The group's final report was sent to the leaders of the main unionist parties in February 2014, but was not agreed by the party leaders and was never formally published.

After the collapse of the Unionist Forum, the PUP continued the research.

There are no costs specified for any of the recommendations.

The report concludes that "the woeful educational outcomes for children from our most disadvantaged communities is a damning indictment of our 'world-class education system'".

It also calls for "increased collaboration between educationalists, industry, business and local communities".