I, too, really welcome being able to contribute to the debate. Educational attainment is a really important subject in respect of West Belfast and the North more broadly.

Since Members — including some who do not represent West Belfast — are sharing personal stories about their connection to education in West Belfast, I will share mine. Although I represent South Belfast, some schools in the south-west Belfast part of the constituency have an intake from West Belfast. That includes Malone Integrated College and Rathmore Grammar School. A significant number of kids who live in the West Belfast constituency go to Rathmore and Malone. My aunt was, for years, a French teacher in St Rose’s, which no longer exists and is now part of All Saints College. She used to organise exchange trips over to Brittany for girls from St Rose's and St Louise’s Comprehensive College. When I was, I think, 12— a wee culchie from Downpatrick — I was persuaded, possibly against my better judgement, to go on a one-man exchange trip to Brittany with a bus full of girls from St Rose's and St Louise’s. We are talking about educational attainment: well, I certainly got an education from that bus-full of girls from West Belfast, who were not long educating me in what I was right and wrong about. It was great craic.

It has been said that educational attainment in West Belfast has improved but is not where it needs to be. It is also true that West Belfast, despite progress and the amazing contribution of educators and community groups there, who have been named, deprivation levels are far too high, as they are in other parts of this region, and educational attainment is not high enough. Educational attainment is not where it needs to be in this region more generally, but it is —