A PANEL of experts is to examine the links between educational underachievement and social disadvantage.
The initiative was unveiled in the assembly yesterday by Education Minister Peter Weir, the panel's establishment having been among the pledges in January's New Decade New Approach agreement.
Figures from the DUP minister's department show that while outcomes for children in receipt of free school meals have improved over the past decade, they are significantly less likely than their non-free school meal counterparts to leave school with five or more GCSEs.
Historically, the gap in educational achievement is particularly marked in the case of working class Protestant boys.
The six-member panel, which will begin work in September in the hope that it can deliver its report at the end of May next year, will be chaired by Dr Noel Purdy, director of the Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement, based at Belfast's Stranmillis University College.
Mr Weir told the assembly that the issue of educational underachievement was "simply too important to ignore" and that the panel had the "potential to significantly improve the outcomes for thousands of children".
"Every child in Northern Ireland, regardless of their community background, deserves a real chance in life," he said.
"From birth, some children will face significantly greater obstacles which need to be overcome before they are in a position to realise their full potential. Currently some manage to overcome these barriers and others do not."
In its planned engagement with a variety of organisations with experience of the issues associated with educational underachievement, the panel will consult with parents and children as well as the wider education sector, government, the voluntary and community sector, business organisations and the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People.
"Despite, the Covid-19 pandemic, I have remained committed to establishing this review panel and enabling them to start their work and now I have also set an ambitious timescale of nine months for the work," the minister said.
The remaining members of the panel, which is estimated to cost in the region of £110,000, are Belfast Boys Model School principal Mary Montgomery; former Hazelwood Integrated College principal Kathleen O’Hare; principal of Derry's Longtower Primary School Joyce Logue; Greater Shankill Partnership chief executive Jackie Redpath and Professor Feyisa Demie of Durham University.
Sinn Féin education spokeswoman Karen Mullan said the panel needed to acknowledge the "clear correlation between transfer test results and social background".
"Countless studies into transfer tests have found that pupils from working class families are unfairly disadvantaged with limited access to additional support and resources," she said.
"This early disadvantage must not be allowed to define the future of young people."
SDLP education spokesman Daniel McCrossan welcomed the panel's establishment but said it was important its report did not "sit on a shelf".
"The panel must be focused with clear outcomes and then the minister must commit to act upon them," he said.
