Ruane's guinea pigs

Tomorrow, my son is one of Catriona Ruane's guinea pigs. What? I hear you ask.

In her infinite knowledge, Ms Ruane (Minister for Education) did away with our selection exam used to determine whether children were more suited to grammar or secondary education. That in itself is not really the big issue as it was, perhaps, a flawed system.

No, no no. Ms Ruane's big mistake was that she did away with the exam, known as the 11+, but remarkably put nothing, absolutely no system, in it's place.

So tomorrow my son starts a series of tests introduced independantly by local grammar schools in an attempt to gain a place at one of them. However, these tests are not recognised by the Department of Education and could (to cut a very, very long story short) all add up to nothing anyway.

So basically, the lovely Ms Ruane, or that woman as she is affectionately known round this house, is playing hardball and holding kids, and their futures, to ransom to make her petty political points.

If the system was flawed before, it's totally fecked now.