Education's end of year report

BBC NI's education correspondent Maggie Taggart looks back on a year when the future of Northern Ireland's transfer test was again making the headlines.

The future of the grammar schools, rows about exam marking and controversial decisions in the universities have dominated the education headlines over the last 12 months.

The Burns report which suggested changes to the way children are allocated school places after they leave primary school continued to raise hackles in some quarters and raise hopes in others.

Consultation on the report brought a range of opinions.

Most of the education bodies told the Department of Education they were opposed to academic selection at 11.

Martin McGuinness began transfer review

But most Unionist politicians backed the grammar schools which launched a campaign to protect their right to choose the brightest pupils for a more academic education.

When it came to a household response survey, the waters were muddied even more when most of those who returned their forms voted to keep some sort of academic selection.

The Minister for Education, Martin McGuinness, was undaunted.

And as the assembly reached crisis point, one of his last acts in the job was to announce that the final 11-plus transfer test would be in November 2004.

Now his successor among direct rule ministers, Jane Kennedy, says she will aim to do that, but cannot promise to stick to that deadline.

A programme of meetings is supposed to be working on alternatives, but it is unlikely that any radical changes will be proposed while the assembly is suspended.

Queen's: Revealed plans to close some departments

School life in north Belfast was disrupted again in 2002 when a loyalist threat was made to Catholic school staff.

Following the protests and bitterness of the Holy Cross Girls' primary school dispute, the warning was taken seriously and there was widespread condemnation until the threat was lifted.

Holy Cross school found that the loyalist street demonstrations had a dramatic effect with the number of pupils going to the school much reduced.

For the moment though, extra money is being spent to protect the school from redundancies and more funding has been given to help other north Belfast schools recover from a time of sectarian accusations and recriminations.

In higher education there was bad news from the universities.

Queen's University revealed it wanted to close a number of academic departments and despite howls of outrage, the Classics department has not been reprieved.

Queen's also revealed that grand plans for a £60m redevelopment around the Students' Union would be abandoned indefinitely.

Universities have highlighted lack of research funding

It said it could not raise the money to fund it and claimed that saving some listed houses damaged the scheme's earning potential.

The University of Ulster was not unscathed by the economic climate. Its long term plans to be a part of the Springvale campus have been scrapped.

University bosses finally admitted they would not be taking part in the development because they said a report condemned it as unviable and unaffordable.

Reactions from west Belfast, which would have benefited from Springvale, were angry but resigned.

Community leaders there said they knew the university was lukewarm on the project and enthusiasm had waned since the departure of its main champion, the former vice chancellor Sir Trevor Smyth.

All in all, the unversities are having a rough time.

The two local institutions joined forces to complain about a lack of funding for research and development.

Towards the end of the year, the government responded offering a boost of £30m over the next three years.

That has been welcomed as going some way to bringing Northern Ireland's universities closer to their counterparts in other parts of the UK, but they say there's still a shortfall and they hope more funding is on the way.