NORTHERN Ireland’s Entitlement Framework is enabling Northern Ireland students to better compete for jobs on a global playing field, according to the biggest locally-based teaching union.
Congratulating pupils on their GCSE results this year Avril Hall Callaghan, general secretary of the Ulster Teachers’ Union, said the framework — which will be running a year next month — was offering pupils a wider choice of subjects and skills, both vocation-al and academic.
The Entitlement Framework guarantees all pupils, regardless of what school they attend, access to a minimum number of courses at Key Stage 4 and post-16, of which at least one third must be general and one third applied.
“The Entitlement Framework, launched in September 2013, is helping equip young people with the skills and qualifications they need, as it guarantees them the right to a more varied range of subject choices,” she said. “We are facing a global economic crisis and it will require new progressive thinking if economies are to recover. That thinking must start now with the children we are educating to take the country forward and applied subjects must be respected in their own right.
“Children who want to pursue this direction should be able to do so from much earlier in their schooling as opposed to being locked into academic subjects which hold no interest or future for them, with all the attendant problems that can cause, for both them and the teacher.
“We are competing in a global jobs market and we must give our young people the tools to succeed in a rapidly changing world. A well-educated and highly skilled workforce will be crucial to Northern Ireland’s economic recovery.
“The key is in strengthening the links between the world of commerce and business and education — and the best way to do that is by supplying employers with suitably trained and qualified workers?’
By 2015 schools will have to offer access to a minimum of 24 courses at key stage four and 27 at post-16, and at least one third of these courses should be general and at least one third applied.