Integrated Education Fund

An open letter published today in Northern Ireland calls on the new Executive, Education Minister and MLAs to encourage our politicians to make educational reform a key priority over the next four years, for the sake of all our futures. At the same time, a new campaign is launched in which the wider public can become involved: One School of Thought.

It’s a campaign fully supported by the Integrated Education Fund.

The Fund works to make integration, not segregation, the norm in the Northern Ireland education system; we see this as a fundamental step in the journey towards a shared future and a more collaborative culture.

In the current economic climate, sharing is additionally important in any strategy to allocate the current, restricted budget for schools.

We want to see an education system which both delivers high education outcomes and encourages and rewards an inclusive ethos; a system in which children from all religious and cultural backgrounds have the opportunity to learn and grow together in their local area.

As we celebrate thirty years since the opening of the first planned integrated school in Northern Ireland, we feel it’s time for a radical rethink of the delivery of education, and we can see that many prominent and influential people from all walks of life have been glad to add their names to the campaign.

We know from recent research – the Ipsos MORI poll commissioned by the Fund, and the latest Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey – that the majority of people in Northern Ireland want to see more sharing and integration in and between schools. Anyone can put their names to the campaign via the website:

www.oneschoolofthought.org.uk

or by following the campaign on Twitter or Facebook.