ALTHOUGH senior managers in Ulster University must carry responsibility for the proposed loss of 450 jobs there, the source of its difficulties lies ultimately with Stormont.

It is not because the Executive has the wrong policy for higher education – it has no policy for it and it has never suggested it might need one.

Indeed, apart from children with special educational needs, Stormont’s Programme for Government makes no reference to education at any level.

Meanwhile, 73% of our schools are financially insolvent, to the tune of about £100 million.

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The Education Authority is in financial and administrative chaos and Ulster University is losing about 15% of its staff.

A more honest approach by Stormont would be to appoint a Minister for Ignorance to oversee the planned mutilation of our education system, rather than the current process of its incremental dismemberment.

So what, you ask, is wrong with education here? There are three main problems.

The first is that Stormont governs education as two separate systems, rather than as a seamless process.

Schools are run by a DUP-led........

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