One of the major constraints to the growth in Integrated Education is finance. To date it has been parents who start integrated schools not government. This has been achieved by parents either voting to change the status of an existing non-integrated school to integrated or fresh start up school. In the case of new start ups, there is considerable financial support required to bridge the gap between starting integrated schools and schools attaining full government funding. In the case of transforming schools, additional support is needed to help this courageous and challenging process.

The first integrated school, Lagan College, was founded in 1981, and by 1989 nine more planned integrated schools were established across Northern Ireland. In each case a local group of parents had to take all the initiatives, locating a site, providing acceptable buildings, furnishing them, employing teachers and paying the bills. Each school was supported by a local Charitable Trust set up for that purpose, as well as donations from other supporters but many individuals had to make personal commitments. No grant aid was available from the Department of Education until each school could prove its viability by demonstrating sufficient long-term enrolments - a process that normally took about three years.

In 1989 the Education Reform (NI) Order was introduced, stating that the government had a duty to encourage and facilitate integrated education and provide recurrent funding for integrated schools from day one of opening, provided they met certain criteria, i.e. that the management, control and ethos of the school were such as were likely to attract to the school reasonable numbers of both Protestant and Roman Catholic pupils. Capital funding was still to be withheld until the viability of long-term enrolment had been proved and, as before, this was a process that normally took about three years.

In 1991, in order to determine a definition of integrated schools, and "reasonable numbers", those most involved in integrated education, namely the school Boards of Governors, Charitable Trusts, staff and parents came together to produce a "Statement of Principles", facilitated by the then newly established Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE). The "Statement of Principles", as well as dealing with the ethos and governance of integrated schools, also considers religious balance to exist if at least 40% of pupils, teaching staff and Governors are of the Protestant tradition and 40% are of the Catholic tradition and both communities are accorded equal respect and understanding within the schools.

Meeting the costs of the initial stages of setting up a school, then the recurrent costs if the school did not meet the criteria in force at the time, and the capital costs for at least the first three years put an enormous financial burden on parents. The need to relieve parents of this financial burden and provide a more co-ordinated approach to the funding issue led to the formation of the Integrated Education Fund in 1992.



Changes in government policy also led to major financial burdens as some schools, which had been expected to meet the criteria in place during their initial planning stages, were turned down for government funding when the criteria were subsequently changed. For example, in 1994 the number of Year 8 pupils required by DE was 60 with a demonstrable religious balance of 75%/25%. In 1996 the number of Year 8 pupils required by DE rose from 60 to 100 with a demonstrable religious balance of 70%/30%. Schools also had to provide a full Economic Appraisal and Development Plan. The schools who were refused funding opened as Independent Schools and relied heavily on the Integrated Education Fund for their recurrent and capital costs until, having proved their viability under the new criteria, they received recurrent and then capital funding and fully vindicated the faith which the integrated movement had in their success.

Criteria for new integrated primary schools were changed again in 2000 when the required enrolment was reduced for Year 1 intakes, from 25 to 15 in cities (Belfast and Derry) and 12 in rural areas. In the medium-term the intake levels would be set at 20 in Belfast and Derry and 15 elsewhere. The criteria for second level schools were changed in 2001 when the required enrolment was reduced from 80 to 50.

For various reasons, including the timing of Department announcements granting Conditional Approval to new schools, some schools do not meet the required criteria by the specified date. In such cases, the Fund can provide a financial guarantee to secure the running of the school regardless of whether or not the criteria are met. This guarantee gives parents confidence that the new school will open and so enrolment numbers will rise.

In recent years the government has applied additional criteria in assessing development proposals for integrated schools, namely, ‘impact on other schools’. This effectively means that where the government feels an integrated school could adversely affect a non-integrated school, the government could reject a proposal. This is a major concern to the Fund as we strongly feel that non-integrated schools should not be able to veto parental demand for integration.