Grammar schools reject AQE testing for Year 8 intake AQE is to hold a single transfer test in late February
08 January, 2021 14:53
Grammar schools in Belfast and Co Tyrone have said they will not use the transfer test this year for their Year 8 intake.
The Royal School Dungannon, Belfast Royal Academy, Victoria College and Campbell College announced their decisions amid a row over one post-primary transfer test going ahead despite a fresh pandemic lockdown.
Independent test providers the Association for Quality Education (AQE) and the Post Primary Transfer Consortium (PPTC) announced earlier this week that exams planned for January and early February would not go ahead.
Anger, division, conflict. Once more Northern Ireland stares down the barrel, but this time it s the academic futures of P7 pupils that the sights are trained on.
Never before in the history of the transfer test has the system of academic selection come under more scrutiny.
On, off and now, after a day of indecision, half the party is on again after one examiner said it would look to hold a single test on February 27. It s a crazy situation.
Always an emotive topic, the merits of placing students in grammar schools has long been a tradition in Northern Ireland, but many recoil at the idea of testing children aged 10 and 11 at a time before many are ready to cope with the challenge and pressure the testing process brings with it.
Alarm over transfer test plans 03 January, 2021 01:00
While there are sincere and informed voices on all sides in the debate over post-primary transfer arrangements, it has been clear for some time that momentum is shifting decisively away from the staging of private tests.
There was widespread relief last summer when a range of grammar schools, mainly in the Catholic sector, said that they were temporarily suspending the use of academic criteria for admissions, due to serious concerns over the coronavirus crisis.
However, to the surprise of many observers, the Association for Quality Education (AQE), announced on Friday that it intended to proceed with a series of independent tests beginning this Saturday, January 9, even though primary school pupils are being taught remotely throughout this week.
Submitting.
The media has been dominated by the opponents of academic selection, circling in this Covid-hit year, seeking to undermine the use of the transfer test using the highly charged language of the educational progressives, and claiming private ownership of the ‘child-centred’ stance on this issue.
In all of my public engagements to date both on television and on the radio I have sought to make the argument that those who are portraying themselves as the moral compass of the Province in relation to this issue are, in fact, offering no workable alternatives for those schools who wish to remain committed to using academic selection, even in this year.