Scope Articles

Transfer tests headed for crunch time

Prof Siobhan O'Neill with Health Minister Robin Swann

7 Dec 2020

Calls to cancel this year’s post-primary transfer tests continue to mount – and the list of barriers to a fair testing process is growing. The Education Minister is gambling on everything going smoothly.

Important lessons from a traumatic year

4 Dec 2020

The vaccination programme marks the beginning of the end of the pandemic just as the shortening days herald the end of what has been an unforgettably traumatic year.

Covid-19 has highlighted NI’s lack of support for childcare

2 Dec 2020

The pandemic has shown once more how important childcare is to many families in Northern Ireland – and why proper help from Stormont is essential.

Pre-school segregation

27 Nov 2020

Stormont’s Education Chair Chris Lyttle said this week: “For an education system to separate children as young as five on the basis of community and religious background is socially and financially flawed.” That’s just the half of it.

The Right to a Home

27 Nov 2020

Communities Minister Carál Ní Chuilín explains her plans to revitalise the Housing Executive.

Westminster needs to prioritise replacing EU funding

Northern Ireland has done pretty well from structural funding (graph from the Institute for Government)

24 Nov 2020

The delay – or complete absence – of a consultation on the planned UK Shared Prosperity Fund is not encouraging. Perhaps this week will bring some news.

Paramilitaries and the pandemic

20 Nov 2020

Here’s a question you thought no-one would ever ask. What impact has the pandemic had on paramilitaries?

To tackle bullying, we must understand it

17 Nov 2020

More than half of young people in Northern Ireland say they have been bullied in the past six months, according to research from the Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum.

How social housing can put wealth back into local communities

13 Nov 2020

In all the excitement that surrounded the announcement of a new housing policy last week, it is important not to forget the enormous role played by Housing Associations in Northern Ireland.

Covid-19 support again puts charities in a bind

10 Nov 2020

Throughout the pandemic, Westminster has not responded to the needs of community and voluntary organisations or the people they serve. That needs to change.

Housing policy prompts Stormont love-in

6 Nov 2020

We’ve become used to American politicians coming over to Northern Ireland to show us how to run a democracy.

Pandemic transfer test debate lacks a resolution

3 Nov 2020

Even if the transfer test goes ahead, it might cause more problems than it prevents for an Education Minister who is wholly committed to academic selection.

Jobs, jobs, jobs: a hard winter beckons

30 Oct 2020

One of the biggest problems in dealing with the economic aspects of the pandemic is that the statistics we need to shape responses are not available in time to make the right decisions.

The more we know about mental health, the better

28 Oct 2020

New research into the general mental health of young people in NI could be transformative for policy makers - and for community and voluntary organisations providing services to local children.

A new kind of politics: the revolutionary Pope

22 Oct 2020

For the past three decades we have been encouraged to believe that there is no alternative to the liberal world order, that we have in that oft-quoted phrase reached the end of history.

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