Mr. Paul Collins:

I thank the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement for inviting the Integrated Education Fund to present to it about the work of the fund and the current progress and challenges for the integrated education movement.

Before I begin our presentation, the Integrated Education Fund, IEF, would like to thank the political parties that supported the current Integrated Education Bill before the Northern Ireland Assembly. We would also like to thank the Department of Foreign Affairs for the financial support fro its reconciliation fund and encouragement over the past 20 years to help grow the integrated education movement in Northern Ireland.

As the Chairman said, Mr. Peter Osborne is a director of the Integrated Education Fund, Ms Tina Merron is chief executive of the Integrated Education Fund and I, Paul Collins, am head of public affairs and advocacy at the IEF.

We would like to begin with a quote from a young woman who was born at the time of the Good Friday Agreement and who has benefited from an integrated education at both primary and secondary level. The lady is Tara Curran. Ms Curran is a past pupil of New-Bridge Integrated College, Loughbrickland. This is what she says:

It's not just about bringing Catholics and Protestants together; Integrated Education is far more than that. It is the bringing together and the teaching of people from all abilities, all religions, all sexualities, all genders, all interests, and personalities. It prepares young people for their way forward no matter where they go in the world.

Ms Curran's words echo the views and experiences of many current and past pupils of integrated schools over the last 40 years since the first integrated school, Lagan College, opened in 1981.

It is 24 years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and yet, despite the best intentions of that agreement to promote integrated education, in Northern Ireland we live in a society that segregates the vast majority of our children at four years of age. We have a system that has created groups of young people who are divided into two tribes, who have no knowledge of the other. Many young people have no opportunity to make friends, learn and play together with those from other denominations or, indeed, those of no denomination.

At the time of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement there were 41 integrated schools in Northern Ireland. Today, 24 years later, there are 68 schools. There has been roughly one additional integrated school every year in that time. All integrated schools in Northern Ireland were set up by the actions of parents coming together and no integrated school was planned by a government. Twenty per cent of first-preference applications to integrated schools are unsuccessful due to the oversubscription for school places in integrated schools. Many more pupils are denied the opportunity of a place in an integrated school because there simply is not an integrated school in their area. If you do not have an integrated school in your area, you do not have a choice.

There is a statutory duty on the Department of Education under the Education Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 to encourage and facilitate the development of integrated education. However, there is no government strategy for growing the number of integrated schools.

The Department of Education’s measurement of demand for new schools is based on the number of existing schools. This maintains the status quoand hence allows no opportunity to measure demand in areas where there are no integrated schools. In areas where there are too many unfilled school places in too many schools, the approach to area planning for schools considers either closing schools down and bussing pupils to the next nearest school of that sector or schools merging within their own sectors. The option of schools merging across sectors to create new integrated schools that could serve the whole community is not even considered. This poor approach to area planning can be illustrated in the Ulster University transforming education research, which was supported by the IEF. This showed that in 32 separate communities there are 64 primary schools, where there is only need for 32 schools. There is no meaningful cross-departmental working to address the need for a less segregated society involving the shared housing programme of the Department of Communities, the Department of Justice, the Department of Finance, Department of Health and Department of Education.

Thanks to the actions of parents across Northern Ireland, integrated schools are now providing places for 25,000 pupils. Over the past 30 years, the IEF, which is a charity, has invested £26 million in grants to try to meet parental demand for integrated education and support the development and growth of integrated schools. For a new-build school, this means the parents starting the schools and then the parents and the fledgling school, with the support of the IEF, having to provide evidence of future demand. There has been no new-build integrated school for the past 15 years. New integrated schools are created through the democratic actions of their parent communities voting to change their existing non-integrated school through the legal process of transformation, to integrated status. Four more schools transformed to become integrated in September 2021, with another set to join the family in September 2022. Other schools are also on this journey, with one awaiting government approval to become integrated. Two more have recently held parental ballots overwhelmingly in favour of transformation and 30 more schools have expressed their interest in becoming integrated.

The Northern Ireland attitudinal poll by LucidTalk in July 2021 showed 71% of Northern Ireland people questioned in this survey believed that integrated education should be the model of education throughout Northern Ireland. Some 73% said if their child’s local school proposed to become an integrated school, they would support this.

The Integrated Education Fund has been working since 1992 towards a Northern Ireland where children from different traditions learn and play together in the same classrooms, in the same schools, and where there is a respect and celebration of religious and cultural diversity. The IEF is an independent charity dedicated to the development and growth of integrated education in Northern Ireland. However, there are challenges. It is undoubtedly true that there are many good schools and many dedicated and professional teachers across Northern Ireland, as well as many other school staff and governors who work tirelessly to support schools. However, the education system within which those dedicated staff work is, through no fault of theirs, seriously flawed. The skills shortages and the failings of the current system are evidenced by the following Northern Ireland statistics. We have the lowest proportion of working adults with a degree and the lowest rate of adult literacy in the United Kingdom. In 2017, nearly 17% of 16- to 64-year-olds had no qualifications, compared with 8% of all UK residents. Alongside these figures, there is the deeply segregated education system with around 90% of pupils in Northern Ireland educated in schools that identify with a single tradition or denomination. Only 7% of Catholics attend controlled, that is, mainly Protestant schools and just over 1% of Protestants attend Catholic-maintained schools. Education has an important role to play in reconciliation and the way it is delivered should never get in the way of people from different backgrounds being educated together and getting to know and understand one another. There are close to 50,000 empty desks in schools across Northern Ireland and upwards of £95 million per annum is wasted on duplication. It is estimated that over £1 billion has been spent in the last decade on bringing young people together in various cross-community initiatives to correct the negative consequences and prejudices resulting from their experience of segregation at school.

However, against this background there is hope for the future as evidenced by the following. Attitudinal polls, micro polls at a local level and parental ballots all show that the vast majority support integrated education. There has been an increase in the number of integrated schools being pushed forward by schools, parents and the IEF, and the integrated education movement. The Integrated Education Bill, a Private Members' Bill introduced by Kellie Armstrong, MLA, has gained cross-party support and is now entering its final stages in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Chris Lyttle, MLA, has proposed a Private Members' Bill to remove the exemption of teachers from fair employment legislation. The setting up of the independent review of education under the “New Decade, New Approach” agreement may be able to address the need for systemic change in the education system. The IEF-supported Ulster University's Transforming Education papers, which gained significant media attention by putting a spotlight on key issues which impact on the delivery of education in Northern Ireland. The IEF and Ulster University developed the future schools project, which helps put communities and schools to the forefront of the area planning process, thereby enabling parental choice locally.

I thank the committee for providing us with the opportunity to present today and we would be happy to take any questions.