THE FOUR main churches have intervened in the education dispute in Northern Ireland which they warn is causing distress and anxiety to children, deep unease to parents and teachers, and a growing sense of frustration to the churches and to wider society.
With the DUP and Sinn Féin polarised on what should replace the controversial Eleven Plus exam senior church representatives said yesterday that politicians must allow "some space" whereby a compromise could be devised. They called for an "honourable consensus" to resolve the standoff.
The DUP and Ulster Unionist Party are strenuously opposing proposals from Sinn Féin Minister for Education Caitríona Ruane to radically overhaul the current system of transfer from primary to second-level schools.
Tomorrow over 13,000 mostly 10-year-olds will sit the first exam of the two-stage Eleven Plus test. They will be the last pupils to do the exam, the results of which dictate whether they transfer mainly to grammar schools or, if they don't reach a sufficient grade, to "secondary" schools.
Ms Ruane and opponents of the Eleven Plus and other proposed methods of transfer based on academic selection contend that the selection process creates an unfair and discriminatory two-tier education system.
She has proposed a system where children at 11 will transfer to post primary schools without any transfer tests and at 14 make "informed choices on their educational pathway" thereafter.
Her proposals, which are proposed to be implemented on a staged-basis over three years, have not been put to the Executive because Sinn Féin is blocking Executive meetings due to its standoff with the DUP. The DUP in any event rejects her plan.
In the meantime parents and children don't know what system of transfer will be in place next year. Furthermore, a number of grammar schools, including some Catholic schools, have said that in this "deregulated" educational system they will devise their own selection tests.
Against the educational uncertainty and confusion educational representatives of the Catholic, Presbyterian, Church of Ireland and Methodist churches in Northern Ireland - respectively Bishop Donal McKeown, Rev Trevor Gribben, Rev Ian Ellis and Rev Trevor Jamieson - intervened yesterday to urge a compromise by the opposing sides.
Following on one set of independent recommendations put forward in the summer they proposed that academic selection should take place at age 14 rather than at 10 or 11 and that where schools were over-subscribed there could be some form of academic selection at that stage to determine who would enter these schools.
"This has gone on long enough, and there needs to be a way found where we begin to move towards consensus," said Rev Gribben.
"Unless we have a legislative framework for an orderly management of the change that has to come then deregulation seems to be the only option," warned Bishop McKeown. "And that chaotic situation really does not favour the bulk of young people in our society and certainly is not good for community cohesion." Ms Ruane welcomed the statement saying there was still time to reach consensus.
Mervyn Storey, DUP chairman of the Assembly education committee, said he supported the need for "breathing space" but added that "the prospect of selection at 14 would raise a myriad of questions, both educational and otherwise".
The SDLP education spokesman Dominic Bradley said all parties must show "purpose and responsibility in advancing change". The Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education urged the parties to follow the lead of the churches.
