BY MARK McKELVEY
WITH a whirlwind of change sweeping through the education sector, local educationalists have spoken this week of the important issues that need to be addressed when the new devolved minister is nominated on May 8.
The controversial issue of academic selection will be high on the agenda, with politicians under pressure to come up with a cross-party alternative for academic selection. That compromise has yet to be found despite lengthy discussions in a Stormont committee.
The main parties hold strongly opposing views: the DUP favours retaining the current 11-plus testing, while Sinn Féin is adamant that an alternative is needed. So, which party gets the education portfolio could determine the direction in which the new Assembly would sway on this crucial issue.
Local retired teacher David McKee is the newly appointed chairman of the Northern Ireland Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) said debating an alternative to the 11-plus will be high on the agenda when the Executive is up and running.
"Academic selection will be one of the major issues that will have to be addressed very quickly by a new minister of education, whoever that may be," said Mr McKee.
"The difficulty, however, with the academic selection issue is that it is a matter whereby cross-community agreement within the body of the Executive and Assembly would have to be witnessed for it to succeed and we don't yet know what that is going to be.
"It is not our (CCEA) job to decide if something is politically correct or not, it is our job to see if we can fulfil the instructions of the minister.
"They set the policy and what we have to do is try and develop those so they can become real ideas and practical realities," he said.
"At present we have to wait and see who is appointed as the new education minister, but there are time constraints on all of this as the present set of regulations governing admission criteria to schools ends in the 2009 receiving year."
Meanwhile, fellow retired teacher and current member of the Western Education and Library Board, Cllr Pat McDonnell has robustly criticised current attempts by the Department of Education to introduce a revised school curriculum and has called for a new minister to suspend all initiatives for five years.
"I have come to the conclusion that the problem with education is generally the minister in charge of it," declared Cllr McDonnell.
"As soon as the new minister for education arrives in Bangor, he/she feels impelled to make sweeping changes in order to attract attention to the fact that there is a new hand at the helm. It is a matter of no concern that the teachers are only just recovering from the generally unnecessary changes wrought by the minister's predecessor.
"The best thing a new minister of education could do would be to suspend all initiatives for at least five years. Believe it or not, education in the real sense would continue as teachers got peace to get on with what really matters in their classrooms."
