The Catholic education sector will be damaged if academic selection remains, according to some primary school principals.
Catholic bishops have called for politicians to agree on a better system of transfer to post-primary schools.
In a Catholic Principals Association survey, 63% of those who
responded agreed failure to end selection would have adverse
consequences.
Of the 400 principals written to, 112, or 28%, responded.
Seventy-six per cent of those who responded agreed too much deference was shown to grammar schools.
The survey suggests many principals feel pressurised into
using unregulated academic tests even though they feel it undermines
church teaching.
While the Catholic bishops want academic selection to be phased out, only one Catholic grammar school has done this, and the
Catholic Principals Association (CPA) has become impatient with the slow
pace of change.
'Corrosive'
It said the survey results would make uncomfortable reading for supporters of academic selection.
Most of those who responded to the survey said they felt
pressurised to participate in the unregulated transfer tests, in case
they lose pupils or staff.
Most believed it was not possible to get good results without
coaching pupils, which they felt had a detrimental effect on the
curriculum.
CPA chair Michele Corkey said the current system of
"perceived losers and winners" was "corrosive of a child's dignity and
worth".
She said the survey's findings emphasised that the Catholic
system's "ethos, spirit and infrastructure must be founded on specific
moral and educational imperatives".
"It is time for all Catholic principals and all church
leaders to be more proactive in implementing successive statements by
the northern Catholic bishops," she said.