Chris Donnelly: Never mind education, let’s have a row about Union flag bags

There can be few stories more ridiculous than the M&S shopping bag saga given oxygen through the media this week.

The story was based on comments by two anonymous shoppers, from a nationalist background, who voiced their opposition to using shopping bags incorporating Union flag designs.

By Tuesday, a headline screamed that the high street firm was declining to comment on why it flies the tricolour in Dublin but hides the Union flag in Northern Ireland.

What made the story absurd was the fact it was deemed newsworthy at all.

Chris Donnelly: Never mind education, let’s have a row about Union flag bags

In a divided society, flags and emblems provoke strong feelings.

Prominent unionist politicians and commentators were quick to articulate their outrage at the suggestion that a store would find it prudent to determine that offering a shopping bag with a design associated with one grouping in the north may be alienating, off-putting or resented by some others.

That a company in the business of making money would abide by the principle of taking the path least likely to negatively impact the pursuit of that objective should not have come as a surprise.

The most galling political intervention came from former UUP leader Doug Beattie, who denounced those objecting to the bags as being guilty of “intolerance of the highest level”.

In 2018, the UUP MLA publicly attacked a GAA club for having goalpost nets in the green, white and yellow colours of the club.

Doug was angry because the colour scheme “created a permanent depiction of the Irish tricolour on the main Tandragee Road between central Craigavon and Lurgan and on one of the main routes used by those travelling from Portadown to Lurgan”.

Heaven forbid.

Tellingly, Mr Beattie explained that “this display by the club does nothing to make me want to engage with or attend any sporting event at the club”, exposing himself to be guilty of the very mindset which dictates high street shop policy on navigating identity matters.

What we choose to talk about in the public space is often a product of decisions taken by politicians and commentators. But it is also a consequence of decisions made by journalists, broadcasters and others with the ability to shape public discussions. In other words, we are all guilty of prioritising the wrong things to discuss.

Last month, the DUP Education Minister Paul Givan recorded an interview with the Stormont Sources podcast revealing a number of significant policy positions warranting critical exposure and public discussion.

From the interview, it is clear he wants to broaden the syllabus for the privately-organised transfer test to reflect other curricular areas beyond maths and literacy.

Mr Givan has been at pains to emphasise his use of evidence to inform his decisions. His department published a ‘myth buster’ document to counter claims made by political opponents and others within education about his TransformEd programme.

Yet, extraordinarily, the interview revealed the minister fundamentally does not appreciate nor understand the breadth of factors contributing towards educational underachievement.

In the discussion, he articulated the belief that a more specific curriculum, with more specific content (reduced in volume) taught with materials provided by the department, “will make sure the attainment gap does close because you will have much greater levels of consistency across every school”.

In other words, he believes we will effectively address underachievement by teaching kids fewer facts, making sure teachers all use the same resources endorsed by the department.

Instructional teaching is not the silver bullet to closing the attainment gap for poorer pupils, though effective teaching obviously plays a significant part.

It simply cannot balance out the disadvantage caused by a system constructed on the shaky foundations of academic selection, which leads to 90% of newcomer children and 90% of looked-after children, alongside the overwhelming majority of poor children, being taught in non-grammar school classrooms with 100% of the children with the lowest attainment levels in numeracy and literacy.

Giving their teachers the same resource materials as their counterparts in grammar schools is not going to be the key difference-maker.

That view is informed by compelling evidence, affirmed by expert opinion from educationalists whom he is personally acquainted with, including Lucy Crehan. The educationalist was appointed by Paul Givan to conduct the Strategic Review of the NI Curriculum. She told MLAs last month at the Stormont Education Committee that “if I was starting from scratch with an education system, I would introduce a comprehensive education system rather than a selective one”.

In a society in which the numbers of young adults not in education, employment or training continues to loom large, for the education minister to clearly fail to appreciate the significance of that is worrying in itself.

What is much worse, however, is that the minister appears intent on deepening the structural inequalities that define our education system.

That is the logical consequence of his current policy directing schools based in working-class communities to disproportionately carry the responsibility for addressing the SEN crisis by opening SpIM classes spared school communities with affluent pupil enrolments, a development almost certain to ensure the main legacy from Paul Givan’s tenure will be a widening of the attainment gap.

That is an issue truly meriting column inches in our newspapers and coverage on our airwaves.

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