Professor John Doyle:

It is not the biggest issue. It is a relatively costly issue, given the context of the limited resources available to the Northern Ireland Executive. The focus tends to be on two school systems: Catholic and Protestant, by and large, with a small integrated sector. Socially, I can see that in some ways is a more important discussion to have, and if I had to pick between social progress and economic progress, I would probably pick social progress. It disguises the fact, however, that, actually, there are four school systems, not two, because each Catholic and Protestant school system is divided into grammar schools and secondary. From a purely economic point of view, the biggest negative impact on the economy is actually the division between grammar and secondary. The bigger social one might be the division between Catholic and Protestant but, from an economic point of view, it is the fact that children in the secondary school system are highly unlikely to advance to further and higher education, so there is a cost to having four schools in the same town. It is in the hundreds of millions of pounds rather than billions, but progress would be nonetheless welcome. It is the longer term. It is the fact that we are failing those children in the schooling system.

Individuals can escape from a statistical pattern, but we know that with that age cohort as a group the chances of them ending up in further or higher education and in well-paid secure jobs is remarkably low. Their situation is radically different from that of their neighbours in the grammar schools. That is the biggest long-term issue. That lack of income, apart from the social consequences of low income, also means there are less resources for future governments to spend in reinvesting in education. These are the economic consequences. There is a cash cost today but the long-term economic consequences are far more severe.