Shocking decline in literacy exposed
17 December 2009
Local educational lobby group, The Parental Alliance for Choice in Education, has exposed statistics which show an appalling drop in literacy attainment in local schools. Their expose is a damming indictment of the present curriculum and Department of Education policies. http://paceni.wordpress.com/
Robert McCartney QC has aptly commented on the revelations:-
Statement by Robert McCartney QC
"I have read with concern the new evidence unearthed by the parents group PACE demonstrating a disastrous fall in KS3 English standards over the last two years.
"I am sure that, like me, most parents will find it hard to believe that such a collapse in exam results can have happened without any alarm being raised by the large number of individuals and groups currently making their living in the public education sector.
"How can it be that The Department of Education, The Minister for Education, The 5 Education & Library boards, CCMS, The Education & Training Inspectorate, The Assembly Education Committee, the Council for Curriculum Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), ESA, The teaching unions, the Children’s Commissioner, the QUB School of Education, 5 assembly political parties, The General Teaching Council of Northern Ireland and all the education correspondents of the local newspapers, radio, and television stations, did not notice this; and if they did notice it why have none of them spoken out? After all this information was put into the public domain by CCEA and was available to those who cared to look.
"Like PACE I believe the underlying cause of this evolving disaster is the revised curriculum and as I warned in 2006 its dire consequences are now afflicting an entire generation of children. While CCEA advocated Assessment for Learning and self assessment by teachers and pupils as a replacement for objective testing, the evidence from these Key Stage 3 results has shown the folly of this approach, as teacher assessment consistently predicts better results than the objective tests demonstrate.
"Three years ago I presented evidence that the Revised Curriculum was not fit for purpose (at that time it was called the Enriched Curriculum). I demonstrated then that it would be damaging to the prospects of the children subjected to it. Indeed one of its evaluators commented that educationally the enriched curriculum "made the rich richer and the poor poorer".
"My well-founded concerns were dismissed by Mr. Gavin Boyd, the then head of CCEA and now the chief executive of ESA. Mr Boyd is putatively the reigning Northern Ireland 'Education Czar'. At that time he used the words "get your facts right". I did get the facts right in 2006 and now the latest KS3 exam results unarguably establish the ongoing failure of the revised curriculum. The full disaster of which will not be revealed until 2020 when its results will be assessed.
"Since 2006 the Key Stage 2 tests of literacy and numeracy at age 11 have been no longer compulsory. In 2006/07 the mandatory obligation to sit the Key Stage 3 tests at age 14 has also been removed. Subsequently in 2008 the requirement that English and Maths be mandatory subjects at GCSE level was also removed. As a result it is now possible for a child to go right through its education without having its command of English and maths objectively tested. Inevitably it is the low achievers who suffer most from the failure to accurately assess their progress. Despite over £40 millions having been spend on dealing with low levels of literacy and numeracy, there now remains no effective method of assessment, whether of improvement or decline in these areas of basic education.
"This latest education disaster has happened on Mr. Boyd’s watch. He must now publicly account for his policy advice failure and debate the causes of his errors with his chief critic prior to any further movement on the Education & Skills Bills."
