Givan launches new strategy for education excellence in Northern Ireland

Date published: 11 March 2025

Setting out the most systematic programme of transformation in over a generation, the strategy will focus on the core areas of curriculum, assessment, qualifications, school improvement and tackling educational disadvantage. Reform in each of these areas will be underpinned by significant investment in high-quality teacher professional development.

Paul Givan said: “This strategy represents a break with what has gone before. For too long we have focused on structural issues in Northern Ireland and simply relied on our highly qualified workforce to continue to produce excellent outcomes.

“The heart of education lies in the classroom. We need to put aside these tired, old conversations and focus on what children learn, how and for what purpose.

Now we must focus on investing in and supporting high-quality professional development for our school leaders and teachers and relentlessly improving curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.”

The strategy is accompanied by a ten-point plan for delivering educational excellence, which draws together the key commitments in the strategy. These can be viewed on the Department’s website at https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/articles/transformed-ni-transforming-teaching-and-learning-strategy-educational-excellence-northern-ireland.

The Education Minister continued: “To ensure that our education system is world-class, we must be willing to learn from the best-performing education systems globally. This new strategy sets out our determination to learn in a sophisticated way from those countries which outperform us at present. It identifies the core elements of excellence that are common across high-performing jurisdictions and uses these to inform the way forward in Northern Ireland.

“To tackle the weaknesses currently identified within our system, we have published a ten-point plan that has been developed from learning from the most effective and fastest improving school systems in the world.

“Over the coming weeks I will make a series of important announcements about assessment, professional learning, literacy and numeracy and school improvement. The work on these is already at an advanced stage.”

As work begins to implement the strategy, two school principals’ panels have been set-up to inform discussions on key policy issues and to offer insights and advice.

Paul Givan concluded: “Our aim is to ensure our education system is truly world-leading – excellent, equitable, inclusive and able to meet the needs of all children and young people in an ever-changing world. This ambitious reform programme has the potential to transform education in Northern Ireland for a generation.”