Debate contribution: Academic Selection

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 3 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

3 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Academic Selection

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5362613

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We are constantly told that the North has a world-class education system. In my view, that is only true if you ignore the tens of thousands of working-class children who constantly get left behind every single year. The teachers, education workers, classroom assistants and the people who work in the canteens are all working in a Trojan manner, but the system is clearly broken, failing pupils every single year. The 11-plus, as it is being referred to, was abolished in 2002, with the last government-run test taking place in 2008. Since then, private companies have ensured that academic selection continues, and it is totally unregulated. Today's motion recognises what countless studies have proven: academic selection is a tool of social division that entrenches educational inequality. That cannot be disputed. I support the SDLP amendment that rightly notes that any programme to address educational disadvantage will be extremely limited without an end to academic selection. The evidence is damning: research consistently shows that transfer tests do cause unnecessary stress and anxiety for young people, regardless of whether one or two or five children did not feel stressed or anxious. The transfer tests disproportionately disadvantage children from lower-income and working-class backgrounds. Academic selection in communities such as mine and that of my colleague from West Belfast opposite means that children can be branded as failures — I do not think that they are failures — at 10 or 11 years old, when they have barely started their education. I do not know how anybody can defend that system. It also means that working-class parents, who do not have the money, spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on private tutors, getting money from family, a credit union or, in some cases, other nefarious ways. I speak as somebody who went to a Catholic grammar school, but grammar schools, in many cases, have become the preserve of the middle classes, while our children are funnelled into under-resourced, non-selective schools. I do not know how anybody can support that system. The facts speak for themselves: only 11% of children attending grammar schools are entitled to free school meals compared with 32% in non-selective schools. That is a huge indicator of poverty and class. The system does not identify talent; it identifies wealth. It perpetuates the myth that, if you have not passed a test by the age of 10 or 11, you are somehow a failure and your future is predetermined. How can anybody stand over that system?

Sure, I will.

Thank you. I would say this to the Member: you do not really listen to the people who have been through that system and who feel like a failure because society has branded them as such. You need to reach out to those people and listen to them a bit more and not make it about yourself. Many children who do not make it to grammar school carry that stigma for life. We have heard that today, so the Member needs to listen to other Members and other points of view in the debate. I do not know what he is chuntering —. I will give way again. Do you want to come in?

Do you want to come in? OK, fair enough. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has called for an end to academic selection. The OECD and others have criticised it. The Equality Commission has highlighted how it deepens educational inequalities. International evidence is clear. Even if the Member to my right will not listen to me, he should note that international evidence is clear that education systems that segregate pupils by ability at an early age exacerbate inequality rather than reduce it. The Minister may claim that —

Sure, I will.

I will come back to that in a second. The Minister may claim, as he did in a previous debate, that there is no public consensus on ending selection, despite growing calls to actually end it. I can tell you what there is consensus on: working-class communities across the North, from all communities, from all backgrounds, on both sides of the divide or from all sorts of corners, are sick of seeing their children being written off at 11 years of age. It is time that we put aside the tired defence of, quite often, middle-class privilege and build an education system that serves all our children, not just the fortunate few. The motion calls for exactly that. It calls for:

"a fair, inclusive and non-selective system"

that gives every child the opportunity to "reach their full potential". Our children deserve better, and, for that reason, I support the motion. Does anybody else want to come in? Go ahead. There are two of you. Take your pick.

I do not understand your point.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:26 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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