Member's statement: Academic Selection

Member's statement by Mr Nick Mathison on 26 January 2026.

MLA

Mr Nick Mathison

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

26 January 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Academic Selection

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5340177

Read the official Assembly record

Text

As everyone will know, thousands of children across Northern Ireland received their Schools' Entrance Assessment Group test results at the weekend. Many will be delighted with the outcome, while others will be disappointed. There will be others who chose not to sit the test who will be unsure of their next steps in the post-primary transfer process. I put it clearly on the record that I believe that our current system of post-primary transfer is failing many of our children. It is an unfair and unnecessary process for our 10- and 11-year-old children to sit those tests simply for them to move on to the next stage in their education journey, where they will engage in a common curriculum at Key Stage 3 with all their peers, as they have done throughout primary school. Many parents will be all too aware of the stress placed on our children and young people that is created by their preparing for, sitting and then receiving the results of any sort of academic selection. The evidence is clear. It demonstrates that failing to gain access to the school that they had hoped for, or to gain the result that they had hoped for in the test, can have a profound impact on our children's mental health. The independent review of education was clear that our current process of academic selection perpetuates socio-economic division between selective and non-selective schools. We continue to facilitate a system that serves to benefit a few already generally privileged pupils and to perpetuate demographic trends, which are at odds with building a shared and inclusive society. We will all be aware of the unprecedented budgetary pressures and financial context in which the Department of Education is currently operating. Our system of academic selection plays a role in impacting on some of those costs, whether that be through the area-planning process and skewing decisions about where we need schools, the impact on home-to-school transport funding or the continued duplication in our school system. Academic selection comes at a financial cost as well as at a cost to children's mental health and well-being. Every year, I hear from parents who are fed up with the system. They want to see politicians and political leaders come up with a better approach to how our children move from primary to post-primary education. It is therefore time for the Minister of Education to facilitate a public conversation on the future of our post-primary transfer process so that we can get to grips with the issue, bring the current system to an end and deliver better outcomes for our children and young people.

437 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:23 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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