Debate contribution: Academic Selection

Debate contribution by Mr Mark Durkan on 3 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Mark Durkan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

3 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Academic Selection

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5362964

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am on my feet already. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank Members and the Minister for their contributions: there have been thoughtful contributions on both sides of the debate. At the heart of the issue are children and their welfare. Regardless of people's ideological views on academic selection at the age of 11, I do not doubt that all of us have the welfare of children at heart. Let me be clear: it is our view and not just our view that academic selection is damaging, outdated and unjust. Testing children at 11 or 10 and dividing them into winners and losers has done and is doing lasting harm to confidence, opportunity and social cohesion. Ending it is the right thing to do, but how we end it matters just as much as why we end it. That is why the debate cannot ignore the past, particularly the actions in the Education Ministry by the party that tabled the motion: Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin set out to abolish the 11-plus. That was a noble aim, and, in principle, it was one that many of us shared. What followed, however, was not reform; it was chaos. The test was removed without a properly planned and properly resourced alternative. There was no broad political agreement; no system-wide transition; and no clarity for parents, schools or pupils. Instead of replacing academic selection, Sinn Féin simply outsourced it. Private, unregulated transfer tests emerged to fill the vacuum. Selection did not disappear; it went underground. Once again and even more so, it was the children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds who paid the price: those whose parents could not afford tuition and those without the luxury of a quiet space to study or do a practice paper or parents with the time or capacity to help them. While we admired and supported the aim, it was not courageous reform. It abolished something in name while allowing it to continue in practice with even less accountability and greater inequality. We cannot build an education system on gestures. We cannot dismantle something as entrenched as academic selection by pretending that wishing it away will make it so. That approach failed children, parents and schools. However, let us be honest: the inability or maybe even unwillingness at that time to build consensus, listen to concerns and plan properly undermined public confidence in change itself. It has allowed defenders of academic selection to say, "Look what happens when you try to reform", and that, sadly, has set progress back years. However, acknowledging those failures certainly does not mean accepting the status quo. Academic selection remains wrong. My daughter has just come through the process, and I again saw — it is 13 years since I saw it with her older brother — the anxiety that it causes children and the consequent pressure that it can put on parents knowing how much they want something and how hard they have worked for something and that it will all boil down to how a paper goes on a particular day. The process still tells children at age 10 or 11 that they are not good enough, still reflects privilege more than potential and still damages our ambition to be a society in which background does not determine destiny. I know that it does not always do that, but, sadly, it usually does. We have heard figures to verify that today.

I will not get an extra minute. Sorry. The lesson from the past is not that we should abandon reform but that reform must be done properly. Ending academic selection requires political maturity, a shared plan, sustained investment and genuine engagement with teachers, parents and communities. It means strengthening all post-primary schools, valuing vocational and academic pathways equally and ensuring that no child feels written off at the age of 10 or 11. If we truly want to end academic selection, we must accept that unilateralism and brinkmanship will not deliver it, and, if others oppose change entirely, they must answer for the harm that the current system continues to do. Education reform should never —

— be about who gets the headlines. It should be about who gets the chance.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:30 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification