End 'Apartheid' Education, Says Robinson

Education in NI is may be facing a shake-up after Peter Robinson, Northern Ireland's First Minister, denounced church schools as a "benign form of apartheid", saying that "we cannot hope to move beyond our present community divisions while our young people are educated separately".

However, his remarks have already earned a rebuke from Bishop Donal McKeown of Down and Connor, who said that parents have a fundamental right to send their children to religious schools: "It is also the hallmark of a stable and pluralist society," he added.

Stormont's Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister has also warned Peter Robinson about taking on the Catholic Church over integrated education.

After Mr Robinson recommended a commission be set up to examine a way of bringing about integrated education across the region, Martin McGuinness said that taking on what Mr Robinson called vested interests in education was a "collision course which will lead us into a total and absolute mess".

In counterpoint, Noreen Campbell from the NI Council for Integrated Education said Mr Robinson's speech was a significant contribution to the debate on the future of education in Northern Ireland.

"I welcome Peter Robinson's intervention. I welcome the debate."

Segregation

The DUP Leader was speaking at the installation of the new Mayor of Castlereagh, Cllr Vivienne McCoy at the weekend, when he rounded on this segregation issue.

"In the area of education it has been said that considerable savings could be made with the creation of a Single Education Authority.

"I still hope that agreement can be reached in moving away from the five education and library boards to a single authority.

"This is not a difference of principle but one of detail and I am hopeful that it can be resolved in the next period of time.

"However, in the meantime I believe that a simple and speedy solution to achieve savings would be to create a single education and library board under existing legislation……….by creating a single educational system.

"We continue to tolerate the idea that at primary and secondary level our children are educated separately," said Mr Robinson.

"I believe that future generations will scarcely believe that such division and separation was common for so long. The reality is that our education system is a benign form of apartheid, which is fundamentally damaging to our society."

He noted that the limited number of integrated schools in Northern Ireland do offer a choice but more often than not they join in the competition for funds against the other two main education sectors.

"I don't in any way object to churches providing and funding schools for those who choose to use them. What I do object to is the State providing and funding church schools.

"Consideration should be given to tasking a body or commission to bring forward recommendations for a staged process of integration and produce proposals to deal with some of the knotty issues such as religious education, school assembly devotions and the curriculum," he concluded.

(BMcC/GK)