Precisely 24 hours after the appointment of Martin McGuinness to the post of Minister of Education in the Northern Ireland Executive this week, I had my first chance to talk to teachers about this unanticipated turn of events.
They were full of a sense of anticipation that times ahead were going to be very interesting.
Inevitably, my sample of opinion was small and unlikely to be representative of the full gamut of teacher opinion in the North. The reactions emerged over a cup of coffee in a maintained school in the Creggan in Derry. Had I been in a controlled school in the Waterside of Derry, the reactions might have been very different. Perhaps anxious, disgusted, fearful? But in these rapidly changing times, it does not pay to presume too much about the views of people in Northern Ireland.
The media in the North have pounced on the issue of the selection process as the most immediate battleground for the attention and the mind of the Minister. They are probably right, for no other feature of the schooling system in Northern Ireland raises such passions in the public mind, in the professions and among prospective employers.
The debate has already begun, with the teacher unions lining up to make statements and the political parties brushing the cobwebs off the education-related paragraphs in their manifestoes. The Minister has already made it clear that Sinn Fein is opposed to the current selection system, while stressing that he is there to work for all the people, including nationalists, unionists and loyalists, who might have very different views on this subject.
My feeling is that despite the current rumpus, the whole notion of a selection process at age 11 could be the issue around which the old political barriers crumble. The whole community wants to debate with its political representatives the educational welfare of all its children and not just the privileged 25 per cent who find their way into grammar schools, having been deemed successful in the core subjects of English, maths and science.
THERE is also what might be called the Irish question. Under direct rule we have fudged the issue of the status of the Irish language in Northern Ireland schools. Its presence can no longer be conveniently boxed away alongside French, as if the two languages meant the same thing to the people of Ireland, North and South.
Ulster-Scots will also have to have its place. And then there are those other, very sensitive Irish questions - how far and in what ways might there be a future convergence between the school curricula and examination systems of the North and of the South? Might there be advantages to all in looking closely at the two teacher education systems, in exploring their commonalities and differences with a view to possible action?
There are many potential problems for Mr McGuinness. But every problem is an opportunity and, if the speculation about the Minister's disposition for action is correct, they will be opportunities for radical action.
There is much work in progress for him to get his teeth into. For example, the Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), which has the role of advising the Minister on the statutory curriculum for all schools and for the examination and assessment of pupils in the North, is currently carrying out a review of the curriculum. The intention is to embark on phased implementation from September 2001. Its published advice to the previous Minister will certainly be sitting in Mr McGuinness's in-tray, if not under his nose.
Among the proposals most likely to cause concern, and possibly require the Minister's intervention and final ruling, are those designed to make the curriculum "more effectively promote a culture of tolerance through education for democracy". As is apparent from the political manoeuvres earlier this week, there is great variance in Northern Ireland as to what constitutes democracy.
THE debate on the nature of the curriculum in this area could be fierce, but the outcome will probably find expression in a programme of study, or even a new statutory subject, which will help young people to be proactive in sustaining and renewing democracy throughout their adult lives. During the debate, those age-old questions about the role of violence in relation to the establishment, maintenance and renewal of democracy in Ireland cannot be ignored, for if they are, this generation of children may have to return, years from now, to the task of rebuilding peace.
The CCEA also aspires to create "closer links between the curriculum and the world of work, especially the skills and qualities needed for success at work". I sense that CCEA will not be allowed by employers, or Mr McGuinness, to be anything other than radical in addressing the curriculum and assessment issues which affect vocational preparation. This particular debate will inevitably bring in the issue of selection as well as the interface with further and higher education. So Sean Farren of the SDLP, the new Minister for Higher Education, will also be embroiled, and radical too, I suspect.
I could go on listing the problems and issues that lobbyists of all colours will push in front of the Minister - dilapidated buildings, overworked and underpaid teachers, inequitable distribution of physical resources, an unwieldy administrative system, an assessment system which assesses the wrong things; and so on.
But there are many nuggets of good practice and imaginative enterprise and leadership to be found in the education system in Northern Ireland. It's not all bad, by any means. Mr McGuinness will have plenty of problems to address and controversies to manage, but if he casts his net wide, into all the corners of political opinion and professional life in Northern Ireland, he will find many, already working at the issues, who will be ready to give him a fair wind.
Harry McMahon is professor of education at the University of Ulster
