I also commend the West Belfast area learning community, working with the West Belfast Partnership Board, for its efforts in collaborative learning to improve outcomes for learners throughout West Belfast. It is this community approach that epitomises all that is good about education. It is vital to recognise that education is not just the responsibility of teachers and schools. Education happens in the home and in the community, as well as in the classroom. It is when all those things work in harmony that our young people have the opportunity to thrive and reach their full potential. That is why we need to build on that in the time ahead. I also know many teachers, staff, parents and governors involved in schools, including in my area of lower Andersonstown and upper Springfield in West Belfast, whose dedication to the children in their care is nothing short of inspiring.

The people of West Belfast have always valued education. They recognise its power to transform lives for the better. It was that community commitment to education that saw the ground-up development of Coláiste Feirste, for example, which I was very fortunate to attend. Irish-medium education in West Belfast began with just a handful of parents, battling against overwhelming odds and all kinds of resistance but united in their shared commitment to the right of our children to enjoy a quality education through the medium of their native language. Today we have a thriving Gaeloideachas

[Translation: Irish-medium education]

sector in West Belfast, where children and young people benefit from full-immersion, Irish-medium education, from naíscoil go meánscoi.

[Translation: from nursery school to secondary school.]

Glór na Móna also does tremendous work in the community and in youth work, among a range of other areas, to ensure that education does not stop at the school gates.

In West Belfast, we are also very much looking forward to the planned new build of All Saints College on the Glen Road, as that represents an investment not just in bricks and mortar but in the future of our young people. It shows them that we believe in them and that they are worth investing in. That should be our main role as political leaders and lawmakers. We need to encourage aspiration, create opportunities and demonstrate to the children and young people of West Belfast that they have a future here. We will do that by investing in the schools estate, and I want to see every school that requires it benefit from the required capital spending. We know that all Departments are under pressure due to chronic underfunding from the British Government for many years now, but we still have a responsibility to ensure that we do the best for those whom we are here to serve, not least the children and young people who attend our schools and colleges.

I welcome the Minister's statement that committed £20 million for a place-based initiative to support a whole-community approach to education, as recommended in the "A Fair Start" report. As I said earlier, a whole-community approach is vital to a successful educational system. So, too, is a united political approach. Creating aspiration and fostering opportunity are multifaceted and require a cross-departmental approach. It is an unfortunate reality that we still have many different viewpoints as to how the education system here should operate. However, for me, it is very simple. You just have to look at the evidence, here and internationally. We still have a long tail of underachievement in the North and far too many young people leaving school without the qualifications that they need or the aspiration that they deserve. Academic selection and rejection is the key driver of that inequality, and continuing with that flies in the face of the overwhelming empirical and international evidence that demonstrates how damaging the transfer test is for children and their outcomes in life. We can do so much better for them, and I urge all parties to embrace that message. We need to be ambitious for our children and young people. We need to be ambitious for their futures and create opportunities for them to stay here, live here, thrive here and raise their families here.

Today, we are talking about supporting educational achievement in West Belfast. I will do everything that I can to support the collaboration, investment and political leadership that is required to do that. However, the Sinn Féin vision for education is one in which all areas thrive, all economies benefit and all children get the opportunity to reach their full potential here in life.