Opinion

Analysis: Parents' toasting Peter Weir's potential departure is premature

Education Minister Peter Weir (left) and First Minster Arlene Foster during a visit to the Hammer Youth Centre in Belfast..
Education Minister Peter Weir (left) and First Minster Arlene Foster during a visit to the Hammer Youth Centre in Belfast.. Education Minister Peter Weir (left) and First Minster Arlene Foster during a visit to the Hammer Youth Centre in Belfast..

PETER Weir's tenure as education minister appears under threat, but parents prematurely toasting his departure possibly need a reality check.

Those loyal to Arlene Foster seem most at-risk if there are sweeping changes.

Mr Weir has been a long-time advocate of his party leader and she has shown allegiance in return.

He was the only one of the DUP ministerial team to resume his old job after the return of the executive last year.

Over the past year and a bit the two have often been a double act during school visits.

However, a new leader could see a re-shuffle and some parents - on social media forums and groups - are somewhat excited by this.

For whatever reason, there are many who appear to believe that there are plenty of people who could do a better job.

That may well be the case, but almost all of these people are not among the DUP's 27 MLAs.

The choice of replacement is, therefore, limited severely.

Nothing will change the policies. The only difference will be that they will be put into the hands of someone vastly less experienced.

There will be no change to grammar school entrance tests, for example.

Rosemary McKeever, a lecturer and moderator of a parents' group on social media, said the DUP would likely become more socially conservative.

Strengthening the union and returning to core Christian values, she said, would "have no immediate impact on the transfer test dilemma for P6, unfortunately".

She added that Mr Weir would be regarded as a moderate in the party.

"The DUP have worked internally for many years to try an reform towards a neoliberal conservative stance post-Paisley. But post-Brexit, this is changing and things are becoming more insular again," she said.

"In the longer term, it may change voting patterns amongst the unionist community, which may have longer term consequences for education policy. The right of secondary school governors to set admissions criteria which allow private admissions tests is tied up with the St Andrews Agreement. Ironically, the Belfast agreement called for the further development of integrated education. So, it's complicated."

Professor Tony Gallagher from Queen's University Belfast said, during the first lockdown, Mr Weir seemed to develop a good system for engaging with principals and using that as a sounding-board for support measures.

"However, he seemed also to be committed to getting things `back to normal' as quickly as possible, on the basis that this was best. This may be why some of the communication with schools appeared to be less effective from September onwards when decisions were often very last-minute and not always tested for their practicality," he said.

"No other DUP MLA knows education better, but perhaps crisis management skills were more important as the situation steadily worsened."

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