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PAT Calls For Grammar Schools Return
Delegates from the Professional Association of Teachers called yesterday for government to reintroduce the 11-plus/grammar school system scrapped in England and Wales by the Labour government following their 1964 election win. Despite the blindingly obvious fact that comprehensive education has failed on the mainland, the government position is still against academic selection and is also presumably happy to bring Northern Ireland's education system down to the same level.
Follow up:
"The government does not support academic selection at 11 and does not wish to see it extended. Where selection exists, the government believes in local decision making as to whether it should continue, and has put in place mechanisms to allow this to happen."
Department for Education and Skills spokeswoman yesterday
This really is a disgrace, demonstrating that no matter what happens, a government will not let the failure of a policy prevent them from continuing to pursue it. This is not choice, it's an illusion of choice. Parents can vote to end academic selection, but are not given the option to vote for it because the nanny knows best.
As I posted on previously, grammar schools work, and contrary to what the egalitarian pea-brains in the Labour Party and their equally inept buddies in Sinn Fein would tell you, grammar schools are good for social mobility - allowing less well-off children the chance to access a higher quality education based solely on merit.
But why let reality get in the way of a dogmatic ideology-based craving to pretend that everyone's the same. Roll on one-size-fits-all education for Northern Ireland!