Stormont was today said to be awash with pride after four of its members, one from each of the four main political parties, graduated with BA Honours First Class in ‘Scratchin Yer Hole’ at the prestigious Belfast university, Queen’s.

The new degree, which offers modules in ‘Looking Interested But Really Completely Zoned Out‘ and ‘Seemingly Talking Intelligently About Nonsense‘ initially had over 20 students at the start of the year, with 15 dropping out after two months due to their inability to keep up with the the MLA’s expertise in the area.

Professor Miles McGopling revealed afterwards that the final module ‘Paying Yourself More Money & Scratching Your Hole‘ saw the four MLAs really prove their remarkable talent in this discipline:

“I’ll never have a cohort like it. Two of the MLAs even managed the triple whammy of  finding a way to take money off thousands of nurses and teachers, pay themselves more and scratch their holes all at the same time. It was quite remarkable. Next year they’ve even agreed to teach how they did it to a new batch of undergraduates. They’ll go far.”

All four graduates have shown interest in furthering their educational journey by taking a Masters in the subject which will include studying ‘Falling Asleep Undetected In Front Of TV Cameras‘ and ‘Hiding In Your Office‘.

The only non-MLA to graduate was a PE teacher.