GCSEs come 'too late' to judge quality of NI education, report says

GCSEs come "too late" in a child's school life to judge the quality of education they receive, the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) has said. An audit report also found there was little evidence that hundreds of millions of pounds invested in Special Educational Needs (SEN) "is being spent effectively or delivering a high-quality education to those who need it". The NIAO said the Department of Education (DE) also had no clear definition of what was meant by "quality of education". Education Minister Paul Givan said the report rightly highlighted the importance of having reliable, comprehensive and earlier assessment information to support children's learning. The NIAO report assessed the quality of education in Northern Ireland. It said GCSE and A-level results were only one way to measure the performance of our education system, but GCSEs were often the first indication of how a pupil was performing in school. "This is very late in a child's education journey and is the end of the formal education process for some," it said. "It is therefore too late to target support and address underachievement. "The department is without basic information on pupil, school and system perform

Apr 2, 2026 → Apr 16, 2026