Ms Tina Merron:

I thank the committee for this opportunity to contribute. I want to outline briefly why the Integrated Education Fund, IEF, exists, why we no longer want to exist and then I will hand over to my colleague, Mr. Paul Caskey, to make a few concluding remarks. The Integrated Education Fund, which was established in 1992 as an independent charitable trust, seeks to bridge the gap between finance and support that is available from the government and what it takes to set up an integrated school. Twenty three years later, the IEF still exists with that core aim and we seek to increase the number of places in integrated schools and also to meet demand and advocate for structural reform of our education system, with the objective that the IEF will no longer be needed in the future. If that financial gap were met, we would no longer need to exist. We would not need to fund-raise continually for integrated education.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, we have spent more than £20 million in seed funding for integrated schools, and today, despite the Good Friday Agreement, we are still needed. It is parents who set up integrated schools, not the Department of Education. We provide support to parents to establish schools. For example, we funded the school that Mr. Proctor attended, Strangford Integrated College. We funded it for two years as an independent school; it is established now and it is very much oversubscribed.

The fund also provides capital support for 13 new integrated playgroup facilities. The Department, for the first time ever, funded an integrated playgroup this year. It is big positive achievement for us. We funded the rest to date and it has all been in terms of capital.

In the last three years we have provided more than £2 million in funding to help existing integrated schools grow. We know the demand exists and they want to grow. We provided additional capital funding for additional classrooms, and they then meet the demand and can prove to the Department of Education that the demand exists.

We also fund and encourage transformation of existing schools that want to become integrated. To date, 20 controlled schools, which are mainly Protestant schools, have transformed to integrated status. However, the first Catholic school recently applied to transform and was refused approval from the Department of Education to do so. The Department provides some financial support but it is not enough to do this work. It is challenging and it takes time to transform a school

Transformation is cost-effective and sustainable with respect to integration, which can help resolve the over-provision of school places. It was recently identified in a Northern Ireland Audit Office report that there is over-provision in respect of at least 20% of the places. Transformation offers a school the opportunity to increase enrolments through working with the entire community, but it needs to be effectively supported.

We have supported the grant-aiding of cross-community education programmes during the past 15 years. We had a programme called PACT, Promoting A Culture of Trust, and we spent more than £1 million and more than 500 schools were involved during those 15 years. The programme is a precursor to some of the shared education programmes that are currently being funded. This work was important for us at the time and it still is important as it demonstrates the appetite for this work, but the time has come for more ambitious programmes with the potential for sustainable structural change. We have put money into this for 15 years and we could do it for another 15 years, and it is great that children have an opportunity to meet each other, but there is no structural change and it is not sustainable. Unfortunately, the PEACE IV programme suggests a similar type of funding, this type of shared education approach, and this will continue to dominate both policy and funding, but we would question whether this is another lost opportunity. Should we not be able to do more? I will pass over to my colleague, Mr. Paul Caskey, for some final comments.