MINISTERS have failed to reach agreement on an impending transfer test as more schools are set to opt out of the 11-plus exam.
In a tense meeting of the executive yesterday, rival parties clashed over a decision to proceed with grammar school entrance tests next month.
The Association for Quality Education (AQE) is pressing ahead with a single paper on February 27.
Usually children are awarded a score based on their best two out of three papers. Thousands of P7 pupils had been due to take the first assessment today.
The Post Primary Transfer Consortium, which is made up of mostly Catholic grammar schools, has cancelled its exams.
At the executive yesterday, Sinn Féin, SDLP and Alliance ministers argued the AQE test should not go ahead due to the Covid-19 crisis.
First Minister Arlene Foster, who chaired the meeting, rejected a call to put the matter to a vote.
It is understood that Education Minister Peter Weir will present a paper on the issue at a future meeting.
As ministers were meeting, several grammar schools announced they would not hold the delayed, single AQE paper.
Campbell College in Belfast, Royal School Dungannon (RSD), Belfast Royal Academy (BRA) and Victoria College Belfast have now joined Strabane Academy in opting out.
Lagan College in Belfast decided previously it would not use test scores.
That leaves 28 of the 34 AQE schools although it is expected that more will pull out.
In a statement, RSD said it realised that children had worked hard in preparing for the tests.
"This is not how any of us would have wanted the transfer process to have worked this year. However, in the circumstances, we have taken this decision based on what we believe to be in the best interests of the children's immediate welfare and their longer term prospects of success at RSD," it said.
Campbell College said while it would not use AQE tests to admit pupils it would still host the assessment for children seeking places at other schools, should it go ahead.
Ahead of the executive meeting, DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said parties must not use the pandemic "to advance anti-selection ideology".
He echoed comments made by his party colleagues in the assembly that opponents were using the health crisis as cover for advancing their political objective of undermining academic selection.
In announcing it would not run the test in February, BRA made specific reference to public health issues.
Victoria College also said it did not consider it appropriate in the interests of the "safety, health and wellbeing of parents, pupils and staff".
Schools that are not running transfer exams are now devising alternative admissions criteria, which must be published by the start of February.
There are concerns that some grammars are considering asking for results of in-class tests taken as long ago as P5.
The NAHT has already come out against this. It has been joined in its opposition by the INTO union.
INTO official Kevin Daly said diagnostic and summative assessment was used by primary schools to ensure pupils had the opportunity to reach their full potential, academically and emotionally.
"As such, it is the long-held view of INTO that primary school teachers must not be asked to play any role in communicating academic achievement or ability as a means of determining which schools their pupils will transfer to," he said.
"A teachers' role, primary, post-primary, special or nursery is to educate and bring out the best in their pupils. It is not to be asked to make life changing decisions in regard to high stakes assessments at any stage of a pupils' education."
