In May and June of 2002, a number of questions were included in the Northern Ireland Omnibus Survey to ascertain public opinion on the key recommendations of the Post Primary Review Body (the Burns Report), as part of the multi-stranded consultation exercise. These recommendations included ending the Transfer Test; ending academic selection, the development of a Pupil Profile for all pupils, common admissions criteria for all schools and the development of collegiates. The findings of the research were published in October 2002 and are available on the Department of Education's website at www.deni.gov.uk. Responses to the main questions asked were as follows:
Question Yes No Undecided 1. Should the current Transfer Test be abolished? 54 27 19 2. Should academic selection be abolished? 32 54 14 3. Should Pupil Profiles be developed to help parents express a preference for an appropriate post-primary school for their child? 76 10 14 4. Should all schools be required to use the same admissions criteria? 69 21 10 5. Should the following admissions criteria be used to decide admissions to post-primary schools? Parental Preference 73 19 8 Brother or Sister attending or eldest child 66 28 6 Parent working at the school 24 70 7 Compelling individual circumstances 69 18 14 Distance of the school from the child's home 67 28 6 6. Should Collegiates be established as recommended by Burns? 62 18 20
The Department of Education has not carried out an assessment of the findings of opinion research studies on academic selection carried out by external organisations. A number of consultation exercises have been carried out during the review of post-primary education to give the public and interested organisations the opportunity to make their views known and the range of views expressed is taken into account by the Government when making decisions.