Foreign Perspectives

One of the principal aims of the Northern Ireland education minister is to end the 11+ selection system and thus kill off the grammar school system.

However, her thinking is extremely flawed. Yes, socialism is all about equality of opportunity but it seems to me that it’s more than that: it’s about giving the opportunities to those who are able to benefit from them. Her banning of selection tests removes the ability of the education system to allocate places on the basis of ability rather than on the basis of how much money one’s parents have.

Whilst clearly it makes some sense to allocate places on the basis of distance from the school what that does is raise property prices in areas near good schools as it already has done in England. Thus the ability of a working class family to send their child to one of these “good schools” is severely diminished as they are priced out of the housing market near these schools very quickly.

Making the primary selection criteria that the child is entitled to free school meals just seems like a joke. What that really means is that those in relatively deprived areas get priority over those in areas a little better off however it also discriminates against the many families who could claim but won’t claim free school meals on principle. Taking that particular criteria what seems sure to happen is that, by and large, those who would have gone to a grammar school will go to the secondary school instead and vice versa. That’s a system that’s sure to fail everyone. How long will it take the less able pupils to do the typical one or two hours a night grammar school homeworks? Three? Four? In reality it’s not going to take long before they fall behind. Similarly in the secondary school system there just aren’t the mechanisms in place to stretch the pupils. Thus we will have a school system that will be suitable for nobody.

However, the main problem with removing selection is that those that can afford it will simply move into the private school system which seems set for a major expansion on the back of her “no academic selection” policy. Without a grammar school system many children from working class families who would have benefited from a grammar school (which is, after all, effectively a private schooling but without the cost) will lose out as will we all.

Of course, banning selection at 11 doesn’t remove selection. In France, everyone is guaranteed a place in university which seems a grand socialist ideal and so it is. The problem is that it results in a dropout rate of 50% in the first year (and is up to 70%) compared to only 8% in the UK.  Surely it can’t make sense to raise expectations unrealistically as they do in France?

The working class need grammar schools. Yes, the selection process isn’t perfect but let’s not kill off the biggest educational advantage that they’ve ever had by wiping out grammar schools.