John McAnulty

20 January 2007

The January 12 conference of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), aimed at resolving the growing crisis around the 11+ transfer test, showed up in a very dramatic way the pervasive influence of ideas of conflict resolution and social partnership with the labour movement.  It also underlined very clearly the inability of these models to offer any solution that would meet the needs of the majority of working class children within the education system.

The conference had one immediate cause – the disgraceful decision of the British government to throw the education rights of children in the North into the pot in a blatant attempt to bribe the ultra-right DUP into a power-sharing government. Even more disgraceful is the timetable slippage which has delayed a decision until March 07 – the outcome is that primary schools have no idea of the curriculum for the primary 6 classes beginning this September. 

The ATL called together a wide variety of the great and the good from education, business and the political parties.  However, despite extensive discussion they were unable to resolve the issue.  This is hardly surprising.  Those who were responsible for the crisis, the British ministers and their civil servants, did not attend and none of the major organisations present were able or willing to offer a critique of the state sponsored sectarianism that was the foundation of the crisis and from which so many of them benefited, each guaranteed their own share of sectarian privilege in education and other fields.

Background papers did however indicate the continuing failure of the North as an economic entity. In educational terms this meant a massive brain drain, a large number of graduates working in jobs that required only a few GCSEs and a large tail of working-class kids emerging from the education system without qualifications or basic skills.  The major provider of employment was the public sector, and the majority of private firms were small-scale operations.  There were few transnational companies and few local companies had any large export role.  In other areas of the world the education system was seen as failing the industrial base.  In the North the economy failed the students.

The most striking element of the conference was the certainty of all the participants that they had to agree. This was the case even when it was blindingly obvious that they could not.  There was no possibility of the grammar school lobby agreeing with those opposed to selection or of the DUP agreeing with Sinn Fein on this issue (although it was quite clear that the two parties saw eye to eye on many other issues).  However all, including Sammy Wilson of the DUP, seemed convinced that their task was to find that illusive agreement.

In the end the search was not so illusive.  All agreed that the Grammar schools would still be standing after the deadline, that they would still have an intake that would in some way be selected on academic ability, and that the contradiction between selection and non-selection would be resolved – by retaining selection but moving it to 14+.

The conflict resolution and social partnership mechanisms worked in the end, but they worked to block change and maintain the status quo ante. Political change and social justice are possible, but they will be delivered in the traditional way – by building a movement of working class militants willing to fight for a better future.