Northern Ireland’s comprehensive programme of education reform – TransformED – sets a strong and credible direction. Plans to streamline GCSE content aim to create more space for schools to focus on developing key maths and English competence, especially for students who start Key Stage 4 with weaker skills. The move towards standardised, full cohort system-level assessment and the greater use of optional diagnostic assessments will provide more robust, comparable data on student progress and enable more precise diagnosis of learning needs and targeted support. Aligning these developments with broader accountability measures that focus on student progress, rather than raw attainment, would further support a fairer and more improvement-oriented system.
As Northern Ireland sets the ambition that all young people stay in school to 18 by raising the age of compulsory education, further reforms will be important so that the full upper secondary phase (14-18) enables all students to make good progress. Important considerations include: reducing the role of high‑stakes qualifications at age 16; exploring a literacy and numeracy proficiency assessment that sets high expectations for all without creating a barrier to progression; and providing clearer guidance on what students learn rather than what they are offered to ensure structured and coherent pathways.