Covid-19 should not be used as a reason to scrap transfer tests says Foster

By Q Radio news

The First Minister has warned MLAs not to use the pandemic to scrap Academic Selection. 

However, Arlene Foster did say the decision of one private provider to proceed with tests in February - should be kept under review. 

It comes after Strabane Academy announced yesterday it would not facilitate the exam - in the interests of childrens' welfare.

It said it will apply its contingency criteria to admit pupils into Year 8. 

The Deputy First Minister has called on AQE to 'do the right thing' and cancel the test. 

An Executive meeting planned to discuss the issue later today, has been cancelled due to two members suffering family bereavements.

It's been rescheduled to tomorrow.

January’s tests for pupils seeking to transfer from primary to grammars were cancelled on Tuesday but hours later a date was set in February.

Stormont’s powersharing partners, Sinn Fein and the DUP, are fundamentally split over the need for a transfer test at age 10 or 11.

Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill has publicly urged a private firm organising the test to drop the plan.

Justin McCamphill, an official at teachers’ union NASUWT, said: “The (education) minister’s responsibilities in relation to exams do not end at GCSE and A-level.

“The minister must intervene and end the uncertainty around the transfer test for this year.

“The minister cannot simply wash his hands of the issue on the basis that the tests are ‘run by a private organisation’.

“All schools using the test are publicly funded and very much lie within the remit of the minister.”

Stay-at-home advice is to be put into legislation from midnight on Thursday, with additional powers being given to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to enforce the measures.

Household mixing will be reduced to just one other household or social bubble.