I support the abolition of selection through the use of the transfer test/ 11+ in the Northern Ireland educational system believing it to be a major source of social injustice, psychological harm, and widespread educational underachievement.

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This petition is being promoted by Reclaim the Enlightenment, a charity founded in 2017 which takes its inspiration from Belfast’s late 18th century progressive era as a spur to forward thinking in the present.

Those pioneers were much concerned with education and advocated ‘free and universal education for all’.

We too, aware that there is much that is wrong with our current educational system, have sought to develop transformative proposals. With this in mind we held a major conference in November 2023 the proceedings of which were published in April 2004. This text is available at Reclaim The Enlightenment. 

We addressed a variety of issues including sectarian division but our contributors returned again and again to the baleful effects of selection and the transfer test/ 11+.

In summary our findings were;

- That the transfer test/ 11+ is itself founded on bogus research and hence provides an unscientific basis for selection.

- That selection creates an educational world of haves and have nots in which pupils at better resourced grammar schools are advantaged while those at secondary schools are disadvantaged.

- That this division leads to the overall under achievement of our educational system. That while at the elite level this performs well enough, for the majority outcomes are close to disastrous.

- That pressures to succeed in the transfer test/ 11+ blight educational practice in the upper classes of many primary schools while better off parents can seek further advantage for their children through private tuition.

- That the psychological effects of the transfer test/ 11+ and selection have been underestimated. That the experience is often marked by prolonged fear and tension. That those who fail often carry the burden of failure into their futures. Friends are separated and, worse still, siblings are often divided.