Promoting a culture of tolerance: education in Northern Ireland
by Fiona Stephen
From: A farewell to arms? From 'long war' to long peace in Northern Ireland edited by Michael Cox, Adrian Guelke and Fiona Stephen
Published by Manchester University Press, 2000
Integrated education
Planned integrated schoolsi in Northern Ireland are a relatively recent phenomenon. The first twelve integrated schools all established during the 1980s were set up by parent groups and independently funded with substantial help from major charitable foundations and trusts most notably the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Nuffield Foundation. In 1989, Brian Mawhinney, then Minister for Education in Northern Ireland, included provision for integrated education in the Education Reform legislation. This was to be only where sufficient parent demand was shown to exist, but it allowed the newly formed voluntary organisation the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE) to actively encourage and support parent groups who wanted to establish integrated schools. The legislation also permitted existing schools to opt for integrated status. Ministerial approval for a change of status was subject to there being sufficient parental support as indicated by a ballot, backed up by credible potential enrolments from both sides of the community, substantial enough over a period of five years to make the transformation to integrated status meaningful. The legislative basis for an integrated school was loosely defined as one being likely to attract 'reasonable numbers' of both Catholics and Protestants which has subsequently been defined by DENI as a 30% minimum enrolment from whichever side of the community forms the minority within a particular school. The integrated schools themselves adhere to a far more specific set of principles, including a commitment to all ability schools at secondary level.ii
Since 1990 and the enabling legislation, the number of integrated schools has rapidly increased, until at the time of writing there are 45 recognised integrated schools, with more in the process of development. This rate of development while impressive, represents provision for barely four per cent of the total school population. It also represents a substantial investment of resources during a period when stringent financial controls and cutbacks have been the perceived norm. This has given rise to claims from opponents that integrated schools have been treated more favourably, although the schools have been rigorously monitored by Department of Education Northern Ireland (DENI) and with much of the capital development being made possible by bank loans and charitable support through the Integrated Education Fund (IEF)iii. From the integrated schools' perspective the situation has appeared very different, with the opening of each school representing a serious struggle to provide suitable accommodationiv, in order to obtain both the necessary initial funding and the vital imprimata of ministerial and DENI approval. The integrated education movement as represented by NICIE and the IEF have the stated goal of making integrated school provision available for ten per cent of the N.I. school population by 2010. Both organisations believe this is the minimum level necessary to make integrated schools at both primary and secondary level available as a real option throughout Northern Ireland. Recently several new integrated schools have been forced to open without any government funding in the face of stringent DENI requirements. In 1994 the Integrated Education Fund in a review of the projected growth of integrated schoolsv identified three potential models for development:
i. containment - allowing for minimum growth and restricting the opening of integrated schools to 1 primary and 1 second level school per year for five years;
ii. reactive - in which NICIE simply responded to parental demand known at the time amounting to perhaps 6 primary and 7 second-level schools over a five year period
iii. proactive - where NICIE would actively stimulate demand for new schools
amongst parent groups resulting in potential 22 primary and 13 second-level
schools over a five year period.
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