Lobbyist supports educational accommodation between religions

David Thompson, a trustee of the Integrated Education Fund (IEF), recalled the sermon whilst making the case for shared education.

He insisted integrationists did not want to force parents into shared education but that accommodation was essential to safeguard people's rights to express their own culture and tradition.

He told the Education Committee how in 1977 Derry City Council passed a resolution in favour of integrated education.

This was followed on April 1, 1977, Easter Sunday by a sermon from Dr Edward Daly "that caused ever-widening ripples of disappointment" amongst members of the integrationist movement All Children Together.

"He expressed fears that schools might be forcibly integrated, saying that closing Catholic schools and introducing an integrated school system would create new and added problems," said Mr Thompson.

"He also expressed grave concern about religious education in state-integrated schools and dismissed the idea that Catholic schools were divisive.

"All Children Together responded that Catholic parents had a right to Catholic schools and that it did not believe that shared and integrated schools had to be godless, saying, 'Our movement is totally against any idea of forced integration.'

"Although the Catholic Church remained the most overtly opposed to integrated education, All Children Together felt that there was much hypocrisy in the attitude of all the Churches to what it was trying to achieve."

The Committee were also briefed by Mark Magill of Oxford Economics on an independent scoping paper on integrated education.

Mr Magill told members how a number of factors suggested a new approach was needed to education delivery.

Firstly, we are no longer as smart as we once were in relation to leading countries like Finland and South Korea.

Said Mr Magill: "It is not only exemplars such as Finland that have maintained and, in some instances, extended their lead over us; emerging economies such as Estonia and South Korea have overtaken Northern Ireland.

"There is a challenge for us to keep up with those economies. We are falling behind those countries in the programme for international student assessment (PISA) scores for maths, general reading and the science subjects, so there is a debate to be had.

"In comparison with some other international economies, Northern Ireland has a greater spread of achievement. Northern Ireland does not compare favourably to Finland with its no child left behind policy: two in five pupils in Northern Ireland leave with fewer than five GCSEs."

The economist also warned education spending was unlikely to be ring-fenced by the Executive and in this context sharing in education would make sense.

"How will shared education be put into practice? By pooling sports equipment, science labs and ICT, schools in the same vicinity could deliver the curriculum jointly. It could be an innovative delivery solution to the fiscal crunch," he told the Committee.

Meanwhile, Mr Thompson said Northern Ireland needed to wean itself off funding from outside the province and that sharing in education could help reduce overheads.

"I am aware that this week there was a report that Northern Ireland had received more than 175 million a year from charities and outside funders over the past ten years.

"We cannot continue to live on money from outside; it will not last. I am talking about EU, British Government, Irish Government, American and other funds that have been given for peace and reconciliation over the past ten years; they will not last for ever. We need to find a way forward," the IEF trustee said.