A UNITED SCHOOL SYSTEM: (OR “How to encourage reconciliation and and save £1 million a week as well !”), Colm M Cavanagh

Colm Cavanagh was one of the parents who opened Oakgrove Integrated Primary School (1991) and Oakgrove Integrated College (1992). A former chair of the NI Council for Integrated Education, he and Prof M Topping were commissioned by the Minister for Education to carry out the “Independent Review of Integrated Education“ (2016).. Co-Chair of Foyle Trust for Integrated Education, he edited the “International Directory of Joint Protestant-Roman Catholic Schools, Colleges and Universities” 2007; and is preparing a new edition for publication in 2021.

"​I was educated for years at a school superintended by Protestant clergymen. My school-fellows being almost all Protestants, I cannot but regard them with feelings of affection"​. ​​These words of ​Archdeacon McCarron, 19th century parish priest of St Columb’s Catholic Church, in Derry’s Waterside, epitomise what psychologists tell us - if you divide a group you risk creating ignorance and an attitude of “Them” and “Us”, whereas contact and collaboration create the conditions for mutual respect and understanding.

The Consultative Group on the Past, commissioned by the Secretary of State, - and whose members were manifestly not anti-church or anti-faith - declared in its 2009 report “​the reality that reconciliation may never be achieved if our children continue to attend separated schools​".

Save £1 Million a Week?

Two thirds of the population say they want a united school system. But if you are not convinced by the reconciliation argument, maybe financial savings would persuade you? Money is certainly going to be scarce after the pandemic.

Two studies were commissioned to estimate the financial cost of our community division - Deloitte in 2007; and the Ulster University Economic Policy Centre in 2016. They came to similar estimates for the cost of our having parallel school structures: a median estimate of £57,237,900 every year - £1 million every week! With £57 million we could employ 2,000 nurses, or build 400 new houses every year.

Three Government attempts at a United School System

Since 1831 three Governments have tried to create a single school system. None succeeded.

1831: The Whig Government offered to subsidise the buildings and teachers. All children would attend together. The “3Rs” would be entirely non-denominational; and religious teaching done on a separate day by the pupils’ own clergy. The Catholic Church agreed. The Church of Ireland disagreed and continued with its own schools. The Presbyterian Church disagreed but negotiated with Government until they got, in effect, Presbyterian schools. So the Anglican children went to Church of Ireland schools. Presbyterian children went to Presbyterian schools. And there was no one left to go to school with the Catholic children. That’s how we got Catholic schools. So by 1840 separate denominational education was set in place.

1923: Lord Londonderry, NI’s first Minister for Education, put through the new Parliament an Education Act which provided state schools that had no religious instruction and also forebade religious discrimination in the staff recruitment. But in 1925 his own Unionist government repealed these provisions, under pressure from members of the three main Protestant churches and the Orange Order. The Catholic schools had stayed apart. So denominational education remained intact.

1974: Northern Ireland’s first power-sharing executive (Unionist, SDLP and Alliance parties) had integrated education in its Programme for Government. But that Executive lasted only five months until toppled by the Ulster Workers’ Council strike.

1981: Eventually a group of Catholic and Protestant parents gave up on the Churches, or Government, or political parties providing cross-community schools and, with no Government support, they opened Lagan College, Belfast, in 1981.

In 1989 parents got the right to get Government funding for integrated schools if they met Department of Education requirements. There are now 65 integrated schools with 24,000 pupils.

Government here does not open or promote integrated schools. And, despite the recommendations of the Equality Commission, teachers remain exempt from Northern Ireland’s strict Fair Employment regulations.

2007: Foyle Trust for Integrated Education published the first international directory of 21 joint Protestant-Catholic church schools. A new edition will be published in 2021. It lists 45 of these schools - 33 in Britain; and one in the Republic of Ireland. So far none has been created in Northern Ireland. But in 2015, following discussions with the four main churches, the NI Department of Education published guidance for establishing jointly managed church schools.