The organisations who run the transfer tests have been accused of "cancelling Christmas"
for Primary Six pupils.
Representatives from the Association of Quality Education (AQE) and Post Primary
Transfer Consortium (PPTC) faced questions from MLAs on Stormont's Education
Committee on Wednesday.
The 2020 transfer tests have been delayed by at least two weeks due to
the coronavirus pandemic.
The tests are used by the vast majority of NI grammar schools to admit pupils.
Darrin Barr from the AQE told MLAs that they had sought to delay holding
the tests until January 2021, but that had not been possible.
"The powers-that-be could not accommodate what we thought was
a reasonable request.
"I'm not sure what more we can do in terms of delay."
Education Minister Peter Weir later told the committee that if the tests
had been held in January that would have had consequences for the entire
post-primary transfer process.
"The problem is that if you're to do - for example - examinations in January,
you wouldn't then be producing results, we've been told by AQE,
until the middle of March," Mr Weir said.
The minister told MLAs that could mean some pupils not starting school until
October if they appealed their post-primary place.
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