Test registrations show selection support

Sarah Saunderson • Published 1 Oct 2009 10:30 0 Comments

t seems that in Fermanagh at least support certainly remains for academic selection.

It has been revealed by one school that more children have registered for the new unregulated entrance test it is running compared to applicants coming to the school under the old 11-plus system.

Details have emerged from two out of the four grammar schools in Enniskillen this week.

The numbers applying to take part in the tests would suggest that, in contradiction to what Education Minister has said about a lack of public will to retain academic selection, parents and pupils are voting with their feet and applying in significant numbers for the tests.

Applications are for two different tests. Prospective pupils at Portora, St. Michael's and Mount Lourdes will sit two exams (English and Maths, set by GL Assessments) on Saturday, November 21 and at the Collegiate, pupils have been registered to sit the Association of Quality Education (AQE) entrance exams on November 14, 28 and December 5.

Even with a lack of uniformity in local testing, it would seem parents and pupils are not being put off.

The Minister's efforts to ban testing and academic selection have thus far been something of a shambles. In this regard, she has failed. Testing and academic selection still very much exist and there is significant public backing for tests.

While the current P7s are facing these new tests and all the uncertainty they bring, what is to say that the same situation won't face our present P6s?

Pupils are under pressure and teachers at primary schools are being put between a rock and a hard place.

On one hand they are told not to coach for the tests while on the other, parents and pupils are keen on being given some sort of direction in their approach to tests that have never been sat before. The whole situation is most undesirable.

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This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 24 Sep 09

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