EDUCATION

Spokesperson: Naomi Long MLA

Last updated: 10 May 2004

Access to education is vital to ensure that every individual has the opportunity to realise his or her full potential. Alliance supports a universal education system, free at the point of access. Government should adequately cater for the demands of nursery, primary, secondary and tertiary places.

Furthermore, Alliance believes in lifelong learning and training. Educational opportunities must be available to all at every stage of life. The system needs to be sufficiently flexible to cater for a range of demands and abilities. The current education system serves well those most academically able, but does not adequately address the needs of pupils across the full spectrum of ability.

The system is fundamentally flawed by the segregated and fragmented nature of provision.

MANIFESTO PLEDGES (2003 NI Assembly)

Citizenship

• Ensure a proper system of civic education at secondary school level, as proposed by the Council for the Curriculum, Examination and Assessment (CCEA). The benefit will be new generations of young people taking on their responsibilities of citizenship.
• Increase anti-sectarian awareness in schools, through civic studies courses.
• Develop strategies to promote positive interactions between older and younger citizens. We support intergenerational schemes that encourage schools and communities to work together.

Nursery schools

• Guarantee a nursery school place for every child who wishes to have one. There are 35 nursery places per 1,000 here, versus a UK average of 71.
• Increase resources for nursery and classroom assistants. Alliance recognises that nursery schools in Northern Ireland are a good example of how education can have an integrated ethos.

Special needs

• Devote additional resources to the education of children with learning difficulties, including additional numbers of teachers and classroom assistants. Alliance supports the right of choice for children with disabilities to go to the schools most appropriate for them, whether mainstream or special needs.
• Ensure adequate provision of resources to enable young adults to attend sheltered workshops, which provide a valuable and rewarding environment. The lack of access to such facilities causes distress to these young adults and their parents.

Post-primary education

• Support the abolition of the 11-plus exams. Schools should not be allowed to use academic ability to decide who should be given a place.
• Ensure that all children would progress to study a common, middle-school curriculum, for the first three years of post-primary education. Importantly, any existing school could provide this middle-school education.
• Defer the age of electing a particular educational route to age 14. We do not believe that 11 is the appropriate age to make educational decisions that will restrict later choices.
• Provide adequate provision for distinct technical, vocational and academic educational choices. Pupils will be free to ‘mix and match’ vocational and academic subjects. Grammar schools will be a valued sector of a greater partnership with other education providers, including the Further & Higher Education sector.
• Bring business enterprise and business entrepreneurship into the curriculum of Northern Ireland schools. This will require collaboration with the business sector, to ensure efficient delivery of this aspect of the curriculum.
• Implement the use of a Pupil Profile, which will provide a holistic assessment of pupils’ skills, abilities and interests throughout their entire educational career. The Pupil Profile would be used as a tool for pupils and parents, in consultation with teachers, to select post-primary schools and elective courses of study.

Integrated education

The Alliance Party has a long-standing commitment to the support and expansion of integrated education, based on two party principles: pluralism in a united community and the provision of parental choice in education. Integrated education is an excellent example of actual reconciliation, benefiting children and adults alike. Integrated education has also made a significant contribution to social cohesion in Northern Ireland.

Alliance will implement the following 9-point plan to expand the provision of integrated education in Northern Ireland, in line with demand:

• Support the creation and maintenance of new-build integrated schools.
• Set a target of 10% of children being educated in integrated schools by 2010.
• Place a duty upon the Education and Library Boards to encourage the development of integrated education. This duty exists upon Department of Education, and goes beyond mere facilitation.
• Survey local residents, by the Department, when new schools are being built (for example, to service new housing developments), with a presumption that they will be integrated or inter-church; as far as possible, new schools should be sited to service mixed catchment areas.
• Encourage the transformation of existing schools to ‘transformed’ integrated status.
• Reform and relax the criteria for the creation and maintenance of integrated schools, giving recognition of those children of mixed, other or no religious background.
• Give formal recognition to the contribution being made to the process of reconciliation by ‘mixed’ schools, those that have a mixed enrolment but no formal integrated status.
• Oppose any creation of an established ‘right’ in a Bill of Rights to a guarantee of public funding for segregated schools, as this could forever entrench segregated schools and frustrate the process of integration.
• Advocate the de-segregation of teacher training courses and facilities, and the familiarisation of integrated education policies and practices in such institutions.

Employment and Learning

The Northern Ireland economy depends on people with good skills and education. To move to a knowledge-based economy, access to learning must be encouraged for all. Academic, vocational and occupational pathways need to be given equal respect and appropriately resourced. Our education and training system must support lifelong learning.

• Abolish tuition fees being charged by all Northern Ireland universities. Cost should not prevent able students from entering a third-level education. Alliance also opposes any introduction of additional top-up fees to Northern Ireland. We support a Scottish-style endowment fund, which graduates would contribute to only after earning £17,000.
• Enable students to repay current student loans over a longer period of time and contingent on income. Only those earning over £23,000 would have to make repayments.
• Encourage initiatives that increase attainment in areas of high deprivation and draw students from across the community.
• Increase funding for university research projects. Such research brings about the innovation vital to the regeneration of Northern Ireland.
• Enable full-time students access to benefits over summer vacation, for those who are genuinely unable to find work during this time.
• Introduce a £500 bursary for mature students. Alliance will also continue to provide means-tested bursaries to all.
• Introduce an entitlement to student loans for lifelong learners over 54, and reinstate funding for LearnDirect courses for the over 60s.
• Develop the cross-border, mutual recognition of qualifications. We welcome the removal of the Irish language qualification as compulsory in public sector employment in the Republic of Ireland.
• Promote citizenship education and cultural diversity, including those values that help support lifelong learning and participation in learning opportunities. This includes the promotion of extra-curricula and personal development opportunities for students, including sporting, cultural and social activities, which add value to the learning environment.

POLICY PAPERS

Education and Training (PDF) or view as webpage (HTML)

Integrated Education (PDF) or view as a webpage (HTML)

CONSULTATION RESPONSES