NI Conservatives education spokeswoman, Annika Nestius-Brown, has said the party has 'grave concerns' about the current Education Bill, which is now in the committee stage in the Assembly.
"Unless it gets a major overhaul, the Education and Skills Authority (ESA), as it is envisaged by John O'Dowd, will be a complicated, expensive, and centralising bureaucracy" Annika explained, "In fact it will be one of the largest Quangos in Europe. It will take decision making away from schools and severely reduce the choice which parents have over how their children are educated. We believe decision making should be as close to schools and parents as possible."
"That ESA has been used in this way, rather than to streamline the governance of education, provides more evidence that, in typical authoritarian style, the Sinn Fein Minister is determined to foist a failed comprehensive system which has already been rejected by parents and the electorate, on pupils in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein has been undermining choice and ignoring public opinion for the past decade. With this Bill, they are overriding the wishes of parents, ramping up costs and introducing comprehensive education in Northern Ireland through the back-door. "