End of 11-plus is 'unstoppable'

The last transfer test is scheduled for 2008

The end of academic selection is unstoppable in spite of opposition from grammar schools, the former Northern Ireland education minister has said.

Martin McGuinness made the comments in a speech to school pupils in Belfast.

He said if the changes were managed properly they would have an immediate and positive effect.

However, Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, who has been campaigning on behalf of the grammar school lobby, said the wishes of the majority had been ignored.

Sir Kenneth said that the change would lead to neighbourhood comprehensives.

He is closely linked to Royal Belfast Academical Institution and said he did not want to see hundreds of years of history swept aside.

However, Mr McGuinness said: "The sole reason for the 11-plus is to provide a means of academic selection for grammar schools," he said.

"The reason why parents, teachers and pupils feel under such pressure and children feel failures has little to do with the 11-plus and everything to do with getting a place in a grammar school."

Mr McGuinness announced the end of selection for grammar schools in the last days of the Stormont assembly.

The last 11-plus transfer test is scheduled to be held in 2008.

In January 2004, the then education minister Jane Kennedy announced the government was abolishing academic selection in Northern Ireland.

The first move to remove the system was made by Mr McGuinness hours before he left office in October 2002.