Households throughout Northern Ireland are to receive a questionnaire from Sinn Féin Education Minister Mr Martin McGuinness in the coming days asking whether they want to abolish or retain the 11-plus exam.
Some 670,000 copies of the form are being distributed to every home, at a cost of £185,000. People are invited to give their views on the Burns report, which proposes the ending of the 11- plus.
Mr McGuinness said he had not yet made a final decision on the exam, which determines whether final-year primary students move on to grammar or secondary schools, although it is well known that he favours its abolition.
"The questionnaires provide a crucial opportunity for ordinary people, who perhaps felt that their views wouldn't be sought, to make their views count in a very real way," he said.
The four main proposals in the Burns report are: the abolition of the 11-plus; continuous assessment of individual pupils' aptitudes and abilities from about age nine, to help parents decide what post-primary school would best suit their child; the application of the same admissions criteria for schools; and the creation of networks of post-primary schools, called collegiates, so that schools in each collegiate would work together to create a wider range of opportunities and services for children.
Mr Danny Kennedy, of the Ulster Unionist Party which, like the DUP, believes the proposals will undermine grammar schools, said he feared the survey was not objective. "The pamphlet is flawed in that it is predicated on the abolition of the current 11-plus and also on the elimination of academic selection," he said.
Mr Sammy Wilson of the DUP accused Mr McGuinness of applying a partisan attitude to the issue.
The SDLP education spokesman, Mr Tommy Gallagher MLA, said he supported ending the 11-plus because it was "unfair, divisive, ineffective and damaging to children and society as a whole". He believed, however, that the proposals on collegiates were unworkable and unrealistic.
