HANDS OFF OUR SCHOOL

Lurgan College Principal Trevor Robinson issued a stark warning to education Minister Catriona Ruane at the school's annual speech day.

He said: "Many of you will know that the Minister of Education is committed to using every means at her disposal to ensure that all selective systems, including the Dickson Plan with its system of delayed selection, are consigned to history.

"I say this to you: the Dickson Plan in its current form is worth saving and worth fighting for."

He went on: "The alternative ‘failed’ vision offered by those who wish to destroy the Dickson Plan is utterly unthinkable. Any move to force the town of Lurgan to give up its selective Controlled Grammar School will be met with passionate resistance and a campaign which will not be for the faint-hearted.

"The people of Lurgan will not tolerate the loss of one of its crowning jewels while the people of neighbouring towns continue to have access to a choice of academic provision, including access to a selective Grammar School. The removal of a Grammar School option would see a ‘brain drain’ from this town which it can ill afford.

"If there is no meeting of hearts and minds as regards the way forward, any attempt to foist a ideologically-driven, comprehensive ‘one size fits all’ solution on this area is doomed to failure.

He went on to point out: "The blithe re-enacting of the mistakes in England which resulted in wide spread comprehensivation will not be tolerated. In no time at all, if the disastrous result in England plays out, the working classes in Northern Ireland are likely to find their children trapped in local sink schools while the affluent middle classes buy their children’s way to a superior education.

"If this happens, the whole of Northern Ireland will mourn the loss of its selective system, this allegedly ‘antiquated’ model of education which, I firmly believe, offers a level of social mobility that supporters of the ‘one size fits all’ model, can only dream of as they display a sentimentality about children and a misguided belief that all children are the same when clearly they are not. I firmly believe in ‘equality of provision’ but ‘equal provision’ is at worst criminal and at best just plain daft!

"The day is drawing near when everyone will have to nail their ‘true’ colours to the mast. The ‘controlled’ community of Lurgan will certainly not judge well those who have played any part in attempting to bring about the destruction of its precious and beloved Dickson Plan."

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