Local educationalist criticises transfer tests
A Newtownabbey educationalist has branded academic selection “fatuous labelism”.
Leigh Cooper, from Ballyclare, an officer with the Ulster Teachers’ Union, was speaking after hundreds of P7 children across Newtownabbey sat the first of their transfer tests on Saturday.
“For the fifth year now since academic selection was de-regulated, thousands of families across Northern Ireland are facing the stress of these unregulated tests - and let’s not forget that it is the child, often just 10-years-old, who is at the heart of this,” she said.
“Pupils should be able to get the education they are entitled to without any process of selection or rejection. Schools should not be telling children they are not good enough,” she added.