Ulster Unionist Party Education spokesperson Danny Kinahan has called the continuing correlation between a parent’s social class and their children’s educational attainment as a shameful statistic in the 21st Century. The South Antrim MLA was speaking after the latest Peace Monitoring Report stated that only 19.7% of Protestant boys entitled to Free School Meals achieved 5 or more GCSEs, compared to almost 59% of Protestant boys who are not entitled.  

The South Antrim MLA said; 

“No child can determine what social or intellectual group they are born into. Nor can they determine the postcode of their parents, yet it is deplorable that in 2014 the perceived wealth, or lack of, of their parents is the single biggest determining factor in their educational attainment across their lifetime. 

“The correlation between social class and educational attainment has been known for many years and yet it is hugely frustrating that very little, if anything, has been done to tackle it. The current Education Minister, as well as his two Sinn Fein predecessors, have obsessed about pursuing their own crude ideological crusade against selection and therefore have neglected the real challenges facing our young people. 

“Tackling this abhorrent inequality should be a shared priority for all political parties as poor educational achievement is blighting the lives of thousands of young people each and  every year. It is time for John O’Dowd to get his act together and recognise that with so many young people leaving our schools without even basic GCSE’s, he is blighting entire communities as the vast majority of jobs now require 5 or more GCSEs as a minimum.  

 “There are a number of other very serious challenges facing our education system. The stalemate over ESA, the failure of the area planning process and the continuing deadlock on selection are all having a detrimental impact on our schools system. I would call on the Education Minister to recognise that our children’s education should be above party politics and therefore ask that he convene a group with a representative membership in order to once and for all make real and meaningful progress on these issues.   

“In the meantime the Ulster Unionist Party would urge the Minister to adopt our new evidence based policy for tackling educational inequality. We propose the introduction of a pupil bonus scheme, similar to the pupil premium already in place in England, whereby schools receive additional money based principally on how many of their children qualify for free school meals. This additional funding, available to all primary schools with one or more free school meals recipient, will be left at the discretion of individual principals to spend on what they deem most pressing.”