‘Time for more serious effort to build a community of values’

In her address at the college’s annual Prize-giving ceremony on Thursday night, Oakgrove Principal Jill Markham called for more serious efforts to build a “community of values.”

Speaking of what she called “the media obsession with examination results” she asked why the same commentators were so silent at other times about issues which matter in education.

Ms Markham said: “There are times in life when we can have a clearer focus: the time of illness or death is often one of those, when things which seemed so important no longer are.

“The riots in England this summer, and the ongoing threat of violence here helped to do that. Maybe it is time for us collectively to remind ourselves that a generation of children is growing up so quickly and to ask if what we are creating is fit for them.

“It might be good to think of the worst that we can do to each other, if we are really to avoid those dangers and build a community of values.”

Commenting on the much-heralded higher achieving results in Northern Ireland each year, she wondered: “Honestly, what good is it for us to say that Northern Ireland has the best results in the UK when around us we see the sights which should shock us if we pause to take them in.”

She said: “Look around at the messages government in Northern Ireland is forced to put out: warning people of the dangers of adults harming children by buying them alcohol; that that message is needed surely indicates there is something seriously wrong.”

Ms Markham continued: “Sectarianism still haunts the decisions of too many people. While many children are willing to move between schools in collaborative lessons, old fears still stifle others’ hopes.

“In some young people, there is a lack of ambition and a sense of despair amid the global recession and other problems which they see.

“Too many feel a sense of desperation, which is shown in alarming rates of self-harm and suicide. We know of violence in homes, and outside them which is damaging lives and minds.

“We have far too many people leaving schools in Northern Ireland without the basic qualifications which they need. Can we honestly say that we are doing our best?”

Ms Markham acknowledged that everyone was facing into times of continued austerity. School budgets, already suffering, are expected to be cut again. She said that this “could be done, perhaps most viciously next year as there are not elections to be fought and won.”

Ms Markham said that, given some of the problems facing young people: “There is something desperately wrong that schools are forced to compete with one another for children, and where schools desperately bid for money to provide the services such as counselling which are a big help in sorting out these problems.”

The Principal suggested that some would argue that in those working in education may have “had it too good” and admitted that there have been things in schools which could have been considered “generous.”

But Ms Markham said that despite the need for financial prudence: “It simply is not right that we in education are making choices about which of the things which we know make children’s lives better we must cut.”

Ms Markham reflected: “When I stop to think, I wonder how long some people think we have to get things right? I wonder when we will ever move out of the cycle of trying to replace the 11+ and see that education is a much broader, deeper thing than that.

“For so many years, Northern Ireland’s education has been damaged by selection, and it seems that its legacy will continue to haunt.”

Ms Markham urged those responsible to recognise that if the city is to reach the vision outlined in “Achieving Derry bright futures” then much more had to be done.

She said: “We have more to do than to pat ourselves on the back, and to move from celebrating our own successes.” She urged political and community leaders to work together and move society on to celebrating collectively in what could be life-changing ways.

Ms Markham concluded: “There are things which we all need to do and lessons for all of us to learn if we are truly to have one city, one community where everyone matters and where as well as having a city of culture, we have a culture of peace.

“And my challenge tonight is to ask what we are doing about that, and as well as preparing our young people with the skills and the qualifications, what are we doing to instil the values?”