Debate contribution: Academic Selection

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on 3 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Paul Givan

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

3 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Academic Selection

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5362649

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Not once did they ever say, "You're a failure", and I suspect that the parents of Mr Baker and Mr Butler did not either, yet people who advocate for abolishing academic selection label those who did not pass the 11-plus as failures. Do they realise the impact that their words have on those who are listening? Do they realise the impact that that terminology has on children who did not get the result that they wanted? They should reflect on that. The issue has been discussed for many years, and the reality remains unchanged: there is no societal consensus on academic selection. This debate has confirmed that. There is no agreement on the best path forward among schools, principals, teachers, parents or young people. It would be interesting to know how many of those who advocate for change have gone into the grammar schools in their constituencies and said to the principals, "Remove academic selection from your criteria". Has Michelle Guy gone into Wallace High School and Friends' School, or written to their boards of governors, to demand that they remove selection from their access criteria? Have Sinn Féin or SDLP representatives done that? Schools choose to include academic selection in their criteria. They can abolish academic selection. How many of the advocates of change in here have gone into schools and said, "You're wrong. Change your process". None of them, bar, I suspect, Mr Carroll. If there was honesty in the debate, we would have seen it in the way in which Members engage with schools in their constituencies. The independent review of education in Northern Ireland described academic selection, alongside community division, as being:

"the most controversial educational issue in Northern Ireland."

It stressed that "most controversial" does not mean "most important", but stated that meaningful and lasting change cannot be delivered without broad consensus. That lack of agreement is not new. As far back as 2001, the Burns report recommended ending state transfer tests. The subsequent public consultation clearly demonstrated that there was no consensus on the way forward in either political or public discourse. Society was, and still is, deeply divided on the issue. Every year, thousands of parents choose to enter their children into the SEAG transfer procedure. Of course, it is not, now, a state test. Entry is a matter of individual choice. In the absence of consensus on the issue, we face a choice. We can continue to expend time and energy on a debate that polarises parents, divides schools and entrenches public disagreement, or we can focus our collective efforts in areas in which they will have the greatest impact, thereby improving outcomes for children. That means focusing on what happens every day in classrooms and having reforms that strengthen teaching and learning; modernise the curriculum, assessment and qualifications; and build a system that supports every child to thrive. It means investing in high-quality professional development for teachers and ensuring that schools have the resources that they need to raise standards and tackle educational disadvantage. That is where we can make the most meaningful difference to children's well-being and life chances, and to the overall performance of our education system. The debate on selective versus non-selective systems is the wrong debate to have. Across the world, we see high-performing and low-performing selective systems and high-performing and low-performing non-selective systems. It is easy for Members to cherry-pick examples of either model. The Netherlands, Switzerland and Singapore have selective systems with very strong educational outcomes. The Republic of Ireland, which is rightly mentioned in the motion, has a predominantly non-selective system, and it performs strongly. In contrast, Wales, which has a fully non-selective comprehensive system, performs below Northern Ireland and below the OECD average in reading, maths and science. Members, what does that tell us? It tells us that structures alone do not determine educational outcomes. The evidence on whether selective systems improve academic outcomes is mixed and heavily shaped by context. The same is true of non-selective systems. No system is successful because it is or is not selective. Systems succeed because the fundamentals are right. The real question is not, "Does the system select?" The real question is whether the curriculum and assessment are right; the governance is effective and coherent; the teaching and learning are of the highest quality; and all pathways offer genuine high-quality routes into the economy. Those are the factors that raise standards, those are the levers that improve outcomes for children, and those are the areas where our energy and focus will make the greatest difference. The motion focuses on the negative impact of academic selection on children, outcomes and social mobility. It calls for a fully non-selective post-primary system that provides equality of opportunity for all. Equality of opportunity is a critical aspiration, but we must ask: is that actually what happens in non-selective systems? Do comprehensive systems create the utopia of perfect social mixing and equal opportunity and schools that are free from concentrations of disadvantage? Quite the opposite. When formal academic selection is removed, selection often reappears in other ways that are less visible, less accountable and harder to address. In many non-selective systems, high-performing comprehensive schools draw overwhelmingly from affluent neighbourhoods. Access to quality education becomes shaped by the ability to afford a house in the right postcode. It becomes a postcode lottery, not a meritocracy. Research also shows that, even in fully comprehensive systems, pupils are usually streamed within the schools themselves: banding, setting, tracking, reinforcing social and economic differences, and replicating the very inequalities that the system is designed to remove. I attended Laurelhill Community College, where I sat exams and was streamed into upper, middle and lower streams. I witnessed the very same issues that people talk about — stigmatisation and failure — at Laurelhill. It depended on the band for which you were selected, based on your academic results in a comprehensive non-selective school. Geography continues to reproduce advantage and disadvantage, regardless of whether formal academic selection exists. Community patterns and housing markets shape which children end up in which schools. At the same time, in many non-selective systems, private schooling expands significantly. Families with the means to do so opt out of the state system in pursuit of perceived quality or social advantage. Across OECD countries, nearly one in five students now attends a private school. Contrast that with Northern Ireland, where private schooling barely features. In the Republic of Ireland, which is mentioned in the motion, there are around 75 fee-paying private schools. In Northern Ireland, there is, of course, no academic selection at primary level, yet we still see significant variations in social composition between schools due to housing and community patterns. Some primary schools have no pupils who are entitled to free school meals; others have more than 80%. Of our 781 primary schools, 75, around 9%, have free school meal levels above 50%. That compares with just 7% of post-primary schools. The social composition of schools reflects the social geography of our wider society. In practice, comprehensive systems often replace academic selection with social selection. Academic selection may disappear on paper, but selection reappears through postcodes, parental choice, private schooling, internal streaming and housing patterns. That does not move us forward; it simply changes the rhetoric. The motion refers to the OECD, but we should be clear about what OECD research consistently tells us. It is not that structural arrangements determine outcomes but that teaching quality matters more than any structural design of a school system. Its major 2025 report, 'Unlocking High-Quality Teaching', makes that point unequivocally. It states that refining and improving teaching practices is the most powerful lever for better student outcomes. The central drivers of improvement are teacher practice, pedagogical skill and supportive school environments. That is what matters, not whether a system is comprehensive or selective. OECD research consistently positions teaching and learning, rather than system design, as the key determinant of educational improvement. Again and again, international evidence shows that the strongest predictor of student achievement is the quality of teaching and instruction. That relationship holds across countries, contexts and time.

I will keep moving, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I want to conclude the speech. Let us look honestly at the outcomes in Northern Ireland. The independent review of education highlighted something deeply important: there are significant variations in pupil outcomes between schools that, on paper, appear to be very similar, including schools with comparable levels of disadvantage. The review found that the highest concentration of underperformance is in schools where free school meal entitlement sits at around 30% to 40%. In those schools, the gap between the highest and lowest performing schools was staggering: around 72 percentage points at GCSE and nearly 70 at A level. That is an extraordinary variation between schools that serve broadly similar communities. One of the aspects that I want to get to is how we improve our schools. For eight years, we had action short of strike by the main teaching unions, and that fundamentally weakened the inspection system. It made it harder to identify issues early, harder to support schools properly and harder to secure improvement for pupils. What happened when I brought forward a Bill to safeguard inspection and put in place the same basic arrangements that operate across the UK and Ireland? Did Sinn Féin support the Bill? Did it stand behind the principle that every child has the right to attend a good school and receive a high-quality education, or did it prioritise the rights of adults above the rights of the children whom our system exists to serve? Those are the real questions. Those are the issues that determine whether we genuinely improve outcomes for young people. Structures matter far less than what actually happens in classrooms and less than the accountability and support mechanisms that keep standards high. That is why I have been taking forward TransformED. That is why we are addressing issues to do with curriculum, assessment and qualifications, and that is why we will be able to address educational underachievement and disadvantage. The work of TransformED will make the most impact when it comes to addressing the issues that concern Members. I appeal to Members not to be distracted by the arguments about academic selection, which go over old ground where there is no consensus, but to focus on tackling the key issues that I am taking forward through TransformED, which has the support of our professionals across Northern Ireland and is reflected in all the working groups that I am taking forward. Members, when we determine whether children thrive, what drives that achievement, opportunity and social mobility? My aim is simple and unwavering: it is that every school in Northern Ireland is a centre of excellence with high expectations and that every child, whatever their background and wherever they live —

— learns in a positive, ambitious and supportive environment. That is fairness, inclusivity and equity in practice, not just in principle. Those are reforms that will benefit all children, change lives and raise standards and that will give every child in Northern Ireland the opportunity to succeed. That is the path to a fairer system and a stronger society, and it is the path that my Department is committed to delivering.

1,880 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:27 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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