Building an education system fit for every learner
Northern Ireland stands at a pivotal moment in its educational journey. My department’s TransformED Strategy represents one of the most ambitious and far reaching reform programmes in the history of education in Northern Ireland, writes Education Minister Paul Givan MLA.
TransformED is grounded in a simple but uncompromising belief: that every child and young person, regardless of background or circumstance, deserves access to an excellent education system that equips them to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
The programme aims to drive improvement across six interlocking areas that research identifies as the foundations of high performing education systems: teacher professional learning, curriculum, qualifications, assessment, school improvement, and tackling educational disadvantage.
Crucially, TransformED adopts a new approach to education policy. It situates Northern Ireland’s system within a wider international context, recognising that while every system is unique, the highest-performing countries share common features, coherence across curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. By drawing on global best practice, TransformED brings fresh insight, challenges assumptions and helps us build on approaches proven to deliver excellence elsewhere.
TransformED provides a coherent, evidence-driven set of actions to strengthen key elements of the education system. Year one has rightly focused on putting the system on a stronger footing. It has involved tough but necessary conversations, extensive engagement with teachers, school leaders, young people, and stakeholders, and the development of coherent policy frameworks across curriculum, literacy, assessment, qualifications, and teacher professional learning.
Over the next 12 months, the focus of TransformED will shift decisively from design to delivery. Following consultation on the new statutory curriculum and the introduction of new curriculum legislation, attention will turn to embedding the framework across the education system. This includes the preparation of high quality curriculum resources, development of a dedicated digital platform for resources, and introduction of a sustained professional development programme to support teachers to deliver new content effectively.
Together, these steps are intended to ensure that curriculum reform moves beyond legislation and policy into consistent classroom practice, with clarity about expectations and strong support for those delivering change.
TransformED recognises that lasting improvement happens not through short-term initiatives or structural change alone, but through sustained investment in teachers’ knowledge, skills, and confidence. The significant expansion of professional learning, alongside curriculum and assessment reform, reflects a deliberate strategy to strengthen classroom practice as the engine of system improvement.
Sustainable reform also requires equity across all parts of our school system. Half of Northern Ireland’s schools are in the controlled sector, educating 150,000 pupils, yet support for these schools has historically been below the standard we should expect. Plans to establish a new statutory body for the controlled sector will deliver genuine parity of support, consolidate existing structures efficiently, and lay the groundwork for a potential future single managing authority across all sectors.
“TransformED brings fresh insight, challenges assumptions, and helps us build on approaches proven to deliver excellence elsewhere.”
Paul Givan MLA, Education Minister
The reform of special educational needs provision is key to delivering an education system that ensures children and young people with SEN can benefit from greater inclusion and receive the right support, from the right people, at the right time, and in the right place.
Moving forward with action on the SEN Reform Agenda alongside initiatives to tackle educational disadvantage under the £20 million RAISE programme and continuing to invest in our youngest learners through the Early Learning Childcare Strategy, are building a future system that is more inclusive, equipped to unlock opportunities for every child, and contributing to a more prosperous future for our society. Taken together, these reforms represent a coherent, ambitious, and long-term vision for education in Northern Ireland.
The work of reform is demanding. It asks much of schools and leaders who are already striving to deliver so much for our children and young people despite the challenging financial climate the sector is operating within.
As Education Minister, I want to thank each and every one of those involved in keeping our schools running. The sheer scale of professional commitment across our education system needs to be acknowledged. The engagement and professionalism shown over the past year in TransformED initiatives is a testament to that. In engaging so willingly, teachers and school leaders have not just informed TransformED, they have shaped it, and, in doing so, played their part in transforming education for generations to come.
Working together we are seeing ambition become action; design move to delivery; and the creation of a system that extends opportunity to every young person, ensuring that every learner in every community gets the start in life they deserve.
