Did Rumsfeld have hidden depths?

By Jim Fitzpatrick
BBC NI Politics Show

A surprising fact about the former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is that he was an expert on Northern Ireland, its politics and the education issue in particular.

His most famous quote is often seen in the context of the War on Terror, but a revised analysis suggests Rumsfeld was actually talking about the 11-plus debate.

"As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know," he said.

"We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.

"But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."

When you apply Rumsfeld's analysis to the ongoing education wrangle, his genius becomes apparent and things become remarkably clear.

Known knowns: Executive agreement is needed to remove academic selection. There is no agreement. Therefore it has not been abolished, merely privatised.

Known unknowns: we do not know if any understanding has been reached between Sinn Fein and the DUP or if one will be reached.

Unknown unknowns?

Everything else you've heard recently about what "might" happen in education is just speculation and wishful thinking.

Short of the DUP agreeing with Sinn Fein, there will be no official test to replace the existing one and therefore no diminishing proportion of children selected on this basis; there will be no minimum quotas based on free school meals; and there will be no binding admissions criteria issued to schools.

The vast majority of grammar schools - both State and Catholic - will continue to use academic criteria to select pupils.

They'll set their own tests and apply their own criteria within the parameters set under legislation that predates devolution.

The state grammars have grouped together to set a common test; the Catholic schools have yet to announce their plans but a few who have broken ranks have indicated they'll be using a different test to the State sector.

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These tests will be sat in the grammar schools themselves, although there's speculation that the Catholic sector may move to hold tests in the Catholic primaries as is currently the case.

You could argue then that there's no real change.

However the prospect of having to sit two types of exams - to cover the State and Catholic sectors - combined with having to sit these exams in the grammars themselves must surely increase the stress and fear felt by the youngsters in question.

Education Minister Caitriona Ruane has made social equality her test for success.

At Stormont last week she quoted statistics from the Belfast area to demonstrate how only a small proportion of children from disadvantaged areas attend grammar schools compared to those from more affluent areas.

But will the unregulated future be any better? The minister could be poised to fail her own test.

See you Sunday

Jim

PS - Of course the 11-plus isn't biased, the fact that the English comprehension in this year's first paper was based on a recipe for "bruschetta" is merely an indication of the ubiquitous nature of Mediterranean cooking. What next, a maths question on how the credit crunch has damaged the value of daddy's stock market investments?

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