DUP has botched education negotiations - Allister
01 December 2008
Extract from a speech by TUV Leader Jim Allister MEP at a public meeting in Bangor on 28th November 2008
“…As the dust settles on the latest DUP/Sinn Fein deal it is becoming increasingly clear that it was Sinn Fein which got its boxes ticked: they are to get policing and justice devolved in 2009, they are to get their Maze shrine under the guise of a “transformation centre”, an Irish Language Strategy is on its way and on education the DUP has given up resistance to the ESA and signalled surrender on transfer at 11.
What did the DUP get in return? Nothing, well maybe a little job security, till IRA/Sinn Fein next needs concessions, and, of course, Peter got “personal assurances” that the wicked Army Council has gone away. How have the mighty fallen? Peter Robinson, who would have torn David Trimble apart for daring to rely on anything the IRA said, is reduced to peddling republican spin. If Peter believes the IRA about the Army Council, does he now also believe they didn’t rob the Northern Bank, because the same people have given that assurance too? How pathetic!
But tonight, I want to focus on the education debacle. The concession to accept the ESA is of tremendous strategic importance and detriment for the future of education. The ESA is about centralist, near totalitarian control of education, curriculum-wise, management-wise and assessment-wise. And who is to control it? None other than Gavin Boyd, an avowed opponent of the grammar schools and every principle that made our education system the envy of many.
Gavin Boyd, the Chief Executive of the Education and Skills Authority (ESA) has no background in teaching. Prior to his appointment as Chief Executive at the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) in February 2000, he was managing director of the Coal Division of Cawoods Fuels.
Mr Boyd’s time at the helm in CCEA was characterised by radical curriculum reform: he introduced a “progressivist” curriculum which moves us away from the tried and trusted priority of grounding children in the basics of English, mathematics, reading and science and instead emphasises, often in the critical early years through mere play, self-development of “the whole child”, leading inexorably to a woolly, frothy product, incapable of objective testing. Hence the link between this approach to education and outlawing selection. In an address to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Mr Boyd’s manager for Curriculum Development, Carmel Gallagher, described the curriculum as a “Trojan Horse that would be the vehicle for effecting significant change.” The chaos which is playing out before our eyes is the result.
In management terms too, ESA will upturn well functioning arrangements, with particular detriment to our many voluntary grammar schools. Central control, by those who take an anathematic view of the grammars, will be asserted, as Sinn Fein spokesman, O’Dowd, boasted earlier this week.
The DUP used to see and stand against these dangers. Sammy Wilson, in particular, railed against the centralising control of an ESA. Now, in another roll-over it is to be meekly accepted.
But an even greater breach of promise is in the offing. Mired in the welter of contradictory statements and documents from the DUP is the reality that just a few days ago they delivered to Sinn Fein a paper offering to surrender selection at 11 to transfer at 14. While Mervyn Storey says one thing, and avows that their commitment is still to selection at 11, the cold print of their secret document to Sinn Fein tells a very different story: “However none of these matters are sufficiently concerning to force us to feel instinctively that agreement around transfer at 14 could not be found…Fourteen could become the key decision point for the future…We would be flexible about the instrument for matching pupils at 14.Fourteen however would be promoted and supported as the key decision point….”
Could it be any clearer? The DUP has signalled its willingness to accept transfer at 14, so the pretence that the line is being held on academic selection at 11 is palably deceptive. If this is how the DUP negotiates – by signalling concession in private and then trying to pull it back in public – little wonder, they have so little to show for the past 18 months. Let no one be fooled, transfer at 14 will destroy our grammar schools.
I fear, therefore, that courstesy of wholly bungled negotiations we are heading for even worse news and chaos on the education front.”
