Debrief

Trevor Lunn MLA and Marie Cowan, Chair of the IEF Board of Trustees, seen pictured with pupils from a recent PACT project in Holywood.

By Marie Cowan, Chair of the IEF Board of Trustee’s

There is at last a growing acknowledgement among politicians, officials and wider civic society that sharing within and between schools represents good value and good practice. It is expressed in the draft Programme for Government, with its acknowledgement of collaboration in education as a crucial element in a shared future.

The Integrated Education Fund has been pioneering sharing between schools of all management types for more than a decade.    We are very proud of the work done by schools of all types under our Promoting a Culture of Trust (PACT) scheme since it was first launched by Senator George Mitchell and supported by the Northern Ireland Fund for Reconciliation twelve years ago.   We continue to be grateful for continuing support from donors.

There are many organisations running programmes which bring our young people together.  A brief conversation with staff, children and parents who have experience of any of these projects will reveal how much participants enjoy and learn from the links formed.

In many cases the contact continues after the individual grant ends. When we launched our latest round of grants, one principal commented that “The IEF PACT scheme has been the springboard for our vision for the local school community. Both schools are committed to maintaining these links in the future.” 

The sheer number of schools in Northern Ireland willingly engaged in cross-community contact shows that people do not want to continue working in isolation.  The draft Programme for Government promises an increase in the number of opportunities for children to participate in such projects.  I hope this Executive is ready to step in at any point and pick up the reins because the system for sharing between schools at present is ad hoc and fragile.

Many of these schemes can only be planned from year to year because that is how a budget dependent on philanthropic funding must work. 

Will the Executive put money where it has pledged support in principle – will there be a continued, practical commitment to maintaining and increasing sharing between schools, I wonder?  It would be a sensible use of money; sharing is an investment in a harmonious future. 

We should be working towards an education system where children learn, play and grow together in properly resourced schools, in state-of-the-art buildings. An education system that focuses on the best academic and training outcomes but also on the social dividends of collaboration.  An education system that prepares young people for the global market place. We may all use different language;  whether we call it integration, sharing, collaboration – the goals, the outcomes are the important things.

The draft Programme for Government acknowledges that the status quo in education is neither sustainable nor desirable. There is also an implicit acknowledgement that the work of organisations such as the Integrated Education Fund has been and continues to be valuable.  I am confident that the planned advisory group on sharing will not ignore the years of experience of people setting up and working in integrated schools, nor the experience – more than a decade – of organisations linking schools through programmes like PACT.

The Integrated Education Fund is also initiating discussions which engage communities,  politicians and education professionals in exploring new models of education. It’s up to political leaders to find the will and courage to make decisions – easier if they know they are reflecting  the wishes of the community they serve. 

So I challenge our politicians to focus on what is important and to create a new vision of Northern Ireland’s schools, to bring children together to grow in mind, body and spirit, rejecting traditional divisions. We are calling on the Minister for Education and the Executive to make decisions which make financial sense and – most importantly – which offer the best learning and social outcomes for all our children.

I am a  Catholic teacher in an integrated primary school.  I find it depressing that there are implicit criticisms of me, and others like me, in the reports of Bishop McKeown’s  World Peace Day address. Many of us have worked hard to build up good relationships with local Priests; in some cases this work has been in the face of active lobbying against schools in their parishes. I want to be anonymous because I don’t want to threaten the links we have made after so much effort on all sides.  The position apparently held by Bishop McKeown undermines that effort and insults our commitment to the education of young people.

I can think of nowhere that a local priest will get a warmer welcome than an Integrated primary school because it is recognition of the work we Catholic teachers are doing.  (more…)

There are a few additions to the IEF website this week – I’ve been watching the “history of sharing” video in the Community section.

Thanks to Tim McGarry’s unique presentation style the film is amusing. I started writing this on Burns’ Day and it strikes me that perhaps the only honourable response when we (anyone), in the Scottish Bard’s words, “see ourselves as others see us” is to laugh.    But the video isn’t just a joke – it gives a brief roundup of various attempts over nearly two centuries to eliminate segregation from the education system on this island. (more…)

By Anne Odling-Smee

(As featured in the Irish News 18th Jan 2012)

I am a Catholic who served for 12 years on an Education and Library Board and have also had the privilege to be a governor for many years of both controlled and integrated schools.    I was dismayed – though, in honesty, not very surprised – by Bishop Donal McKeown’s comments,  quoted in the Irish News earlier this month.  In an article headlined  “Bishop: diluting religion in schools is unfaithful to God”, His Grace suggests that controlled or integrated schools teach only “fragmented information”; the implication is insulting and ignorant and certainly does not accord with my experience.   The article takes the Bishop’s address for World Peace Day as a challenge to supporters of a single education system, and quotes him as saying:  “The Holy Father is clear that education affects the whole person, and means leading young people to move beyond themselves, and leading them to a reality, toward a fullness that leads to growth.”   Many would agree with His Holiness; my issue is that the Bishop, or perhaps the Irish News, seeks to give the impression that there is only one type of school which offers this. Yet all schools in Northern Ireland include religious studies in their teaching and a Christian element in their governance – and certainly maintained schools are not the only establishments to teach and discuss justice and peace as the Bishop also implies. It would be difficult to find a school of any type which did not have as its aim the development of the whole person. (more…)

By Dennis Loretto

THE commitment to greater collaboration in the Programme for Government and in recent political speeches is encouraging. It is essential that the integrated education movement contributes to any consultation on sharing. I would expect the experience of integrated schools to be taken seriously by anyone mapping out a shared future for Northern Ireland.

There has been a focus recently, from politicians and the media, on sharing projects between schools, as an example of how we can work together across traditional divides to enhance the education experience of young people. Clearly the prevalence of programmes and projects like this are firm evidence that most people want to look beyond traditional divisions and reach out to the rest of their wider community. Opinion polls consistently show that when it comes to education, the majority of people want to see their local schools welcoming everyone, cherishing diversity and promoting inclusion.

Yet if the Executive is planning to promote sharing between schools, it is missing a vital opportunity to encourage cohesion whilst saving money. There are about a thousand projects promoting cross-community collaboration between schools, but very little of this activity is currently funded by the state. These schemes, apart from the Entitlement Framework for post-16 courses, operate outside the normal everyday life of the schools, and need targeted support. At present most are dependent on charitable funding. This cannot last forever; indeed many of the current schemes promoting sharing in education have a specific lifespan. Will statutory funding be found to maintain the work, in these times of budget cuts so severe that schools are already making cutbacks? We are not making progress towards a shared future, but relying rather on an artificial, temporary measure which barely begins to address the needs and wants of communities ready for collaboration and diversity.

The economic crisis means we literally can’t afford to move slowly on this; we have to find ways of sharing not specific activities but resources, spaces and time. The sixty-two integrated schools provide models for the way forward.A truly integrated system is sustainable and progressive, offering a rich and stimulating educational environment where each child’s identity is welcomed and cherished. Short-term schemes which mask divisions without demolishing them, take us only a short way towards where we want to be.

OFMDFM Junior Ministers Martina Anderson and Jonathan Bell sponsored a panel discussion marking Inter-Faith Week, organised by the Northern Ireland Inter-Faith Forum: “Accommodating faith and diversity in Northern Ireland”.

The panel discussion was chaired by Liam Clarke, and the panellists were: Steven Agnew MLA, Sammy Douglas MLA, Anna Lo MLA, and Conall McDevitt MLA. (more…)