Final Results for the 11-plus

Robin Sheeran The Politics Show Northern Ireland

The Education Minister, Caitriona Ruane, has finally announced her proposals for the arrangements for children transferring to post-primary schools.

Caitriona Ruane making her mark

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The Executive failed to reach a consensus on the way forward.

So, in the absence of legislation, the minister will issue advisory guidelines to grammar and secondary schools on her suggested transfer procedure.

The final 11-plus results will be delivered on 7 February 2009.

A varied life

Compared to most of the grey men who pepper the Assembly benches at Stormont, Ms Ruane has a led a varied life in and out of politics.

She has, what political observers often describe as, a "hinterland".

Sinn Fein's representatives at Stormont include a number of ex-prisoners, but a professional tennis player is perhaps not what you would expect to see on the party's front bench.

Caitriona Ruane was Irish Tennis Player of the Year in 1981, and represented Ireland at junior, Under-21 and senior level.

Central America

In the 80s, she was a volunteer in the troubled Central American countries, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Ms Ruane's activities since then have tended to grate on unionist politicians.

Her leadership of the campaign to obtain city council funding for the Belfast St Patrick's Day Carnival, raised her profile in Northern Ireland.

As chair of the Bring Them Home campaign, she raised the ire of unionists by working for the release of three republicans held in Colombia.

The Great Transfer Debate

Kevin Sharkey asks what the great school transfer debate reveals about Caitriona Ruane - the politician, her style of communication and her future electoral prospects in South Down.

The minister insists that in her proposed reforms, she has always had the interests of the pupils at heart.

But as the months passed since her appointment in 2007, the barbed criticisms from DUP and UUP members have intensified.

In the Assembly question session that followed her transfer announcement, the UUP MLA, Basil McCrea, said: "As far as the people of Northern Ireland are concerned, she has done more than any other politician to bring the Assembly into disrepute."

11+ the grand finale

'Educational balaclava'

In a debate on rural schools in January, the Education Committee chairman, Mervyn Storey said the minister had decided, "to put on her educational balaclava".

Unionists complain about what they see as a high-handed attitude.

Her consistent support for Irish language education and the fact that she lives in the Republic are also sources of irritation.

One of the minister's staunchest defenders is the Sinnn Fein MLA, John O'Dowd, who has been disparaging in his attacks on the unionists.

"The reason my colleagues opposite have brought forward no proposals," he said, "is that they have none. Their plan is to attack the minister, because they know that they have failed miserably in academic selection.

"The vast majority of people are opposed to the retention of the 11-plus.

"Their mission failed, so their next tack is to go down the road of attacking the minister and causing confusion."

Dissenting schools

Caitriona Ruane is proud of her achievement in removing the 11-plus, but her failure to persuade unionist ministers to agree on a viable replacement has left her impotent in the face of dissenting grammar schools.

She made this plea to objectors.

"If schools choose to become breakaway schools, or to depart from the system, that is up to them. However, I would ask them to put children at the centre - that is what I am going to do.

"For too long, everyone was making policies without thinking about the children.

"Think about those children as they get the results of that test next Saturday morning. Think about them. It is not fair."

The Politics Show for the Northern Ireland, with Jon Sopel and Jim Fitzpatrick on Sunday at 1200 GMT on BBC One.

You get a second chance to see the programme again that night, at 22:55 GMT on BBC One.

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