To ask the Minister of Education what steps his Department is taking to increase the percentage of five or more GCSEs at grades A-C, or equivalent achieved, among pupils who receive free school meals.

Young people who see their time in education as relevant to their aspirations and interests are more likely to remain engaged with their education and achieve their full potential. The full implementation of the Entitlement Framework is about broadening access to economically relevant and individually engaging courses with clear progression pathways for all pupils in Key Stage 4 and post-16. This can make an important contribution to increasing the proportion of pupils who achieve at least five GCSEs at A*-C grades (or equivalent).

In 2014 the proportion of Year 12 pupils entitled to free school meals achieving five or more GCSEs (or equivalent) at grades A*-C increased by 2.0 percentage points (from 62.6% in 2012/13 to 64.6% in 2013/14). Improvements in attainment at age sixteen are enabling our most deprived children to remain in education. In the last year a greater proportion of free school meal entitled pupils stayed on into year 13 in school to continue their education and undertake level 3 studies; an increase from 43.2% in 2013/14 to 44.8% in 2014/15.

Evidence shows that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, with greater obstacles to overcome, make up a significant proportion of those who do not achieve at this level. Therefore, I have redistributed school funding to target those schools with high numbers of pupils from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. I have also funded and implemented interventions to improve outcomes in literacy and numeracy.

A legacy project for the Delivering Social Change Literacy and Numeracy Programme will be developed to ensure that the best practice and learning developed through the Programme can be disseminated across all schools.

I have also provided funding to support programmes aimed at improving school-parent and school-community links. In addition, the focus of the Education Works advertising campaign in 2014/15 was on parents of post primary school age pupils and sought to encourage parents to take steps to support their child in making subject choices and planning for their future education, training and career. The second phase of this year’s campaign, to be launched in January 2016, will also focus on parents of post-primary school age pupils.

However, to raise standards across our education system we need to remove the inequalities within the system, and that means removing academic selection. Admissions decisions based on the outcome of unregulated academic testing are not consistent with the objective of treating children fairly and giving each child the opportunity to reach his/her full potential. This is consistent with views expressed by the Human Rights Commission, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the NI Children’s Commissioner and international experts from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The results of the 2013 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) – an international comparison of school systems for 15 year olds – highlighted the remarkably wide gap between high achievers and low achievers in our education system. The use of academic selection contributes to the maintenance of that gap, resulting in our system being at best average in the PISA rankings.

The continued use of academic selection is a barrier to addressing underachievement in disadvantaged communities. It damages children’s confidence, their motivation to learn, and lowers their expectations of themselves, all of which contributes to the high levels of underachievement we are seeking to tackle.