On The Plus Side

So all those 11-year-olds in Northern Ireland sat the 11-plus anyway. Good for them, and good for the grammar schools for insisting on it. In Northern Ireland, sending fifty per cent of people to university is nothing new. They already do it. They have grammar schools. Which that fifty per cent cannot all have attended. Grammar schools increase standards across the board. It is a fact.

Also a fact is that the entire commercial secondary school sector in Northern Ireland consists of one Steiner school. That's it. There is simply no demand, for the reason set out above. The State pays the fees of all those who pass the entrance exams of what are in some cases fabulously endowed schools, entirely regardless of parental income. But those schools could just walk out. They did over here when the State took away their entrance exams.

Then there would not be such high standards across the board, just as there no longer are over here. And then the commercial secondary school sector, restricted by parental income, would consist of a lot more than one Steiner school. Even before the question arises of the house prices in the (often tiny) catchment areas of the best "comprehensive" schools. Again, exactly as has happened over here.

As with the State payment of the boarding fees for public schools, I hope that those of you still in the Labour Party, or even still planning to vote for it, are very, very, very proud indeed.