‘Clarification’ needed

WITHOUT further clarification from the new minister, John O’Dowd regarding his response to Pat Ramsey’s query when he spoke of the need to ‘protect’ Lisneal College, the comment invites a variety of interpretations. I feel sure there will be others locally who share this view.

Two years ago the UUP in Foyle expressed concerns regarding the future of Controlled education in the city when, put into the context of the Entitlement Curriculum, Area-based planning, the rationalisation of provision for Maintained schools, the failure of the previous Assembly to reach a consensus on addressing the difficulties arising from the actions and policy of successive Sinn Fein Education Ministers, demographic trends and the impact of cuts in public expenditure, it was foreseen the sector was likely to experience negative pressure which in turn would impinge on curricular provision and pupil choice.

The UUP believe the likely result will be constraints on the only Controlled Secondary School in the city to offer and sustain the Entitlement Curriculum at Key Stage 4 and 16-19 for pupils and parents who have opted for the controlled or non-denominational ethos. In our view this raises equality as well as educational issues.

Now the Minister has spoken of protecting Lisneal College and his comments, in being open to interpretation, need clarification as to how he means to put this in place.

We would hope to be in a position to welcome and support his proposals if they address our concerns, now acquiring even greater importance in the light of the recent Report into under-achievement amongst Protestant teenage boys.

If the Minister can find a way of making available extra funding to controlled schooling, even in the short-term, this will be welcomed.

It is possible that the Minister has other measures in mind.

Schools operate within a system where each is permitted to accept on a quota basis, a certain number of pupils, based on choice and in the case of grammar schools, still the preferred choice of many, the results of tests, now, as a result Sinn Fein policy, operating without the accreditation and monitoring of any government regulated authority.

If it is the case that the Minister is to explore a means, through the quota system, of protecting one school, then he will need to proceed with sensitivity and the full support of the community served by the schools involved.

It is not without possibility that handled wrongly it has the potential to harden competition between schools and be perceived, in the context of the local situation which prevails, of reducing, in a less than even-handed way, grammar school provision mainly for one side of the community and furthering the Sinn Fein agenda of ending grammar schools.

Should this be the case, it will not be well received.

It would be our advice to the Minister that his actions should be informed not by the need to protect one particular school but by the need to address all the issues flowing from the actions, and indeed lack of action, by Sinn Fein Ministers in the context of local needs and strategic planning.

The Minister needs to make available the capital to fund the new build for Foyle and Londonderry College on the site designated in the Waterside, explore the issue of quotas in the light of demographic trends and encourage a more robust, economically effective and efficient and productive professional collaborative relationship in terms of providing differentiated curricular choices within that sector and ethos which is the choice of most of the pupils from the broader PUL community.

Such action will be seen to be progressive and even-handed and shift the debate from the need to protect any one school to issues pertaining to achievement, career pathways and the future well-being of young people in times which are challenging and uncertain.

It will also begin to address the perceived gap that exists between the controlled and maintained sectors in the manner in which they serve and interact with their clientele.

Discussion needs to be initiated with schools, churches, political representatives, pupils and parents and the wider community as a matter of urgency. In the meantime, the Minister needs to clarify his comments.