International Fund Backs Integration

Some £3.5m is to be spent helping secondary and grammar schools in the North's Catholic and State school sectors to share classes.

The International Fund for Ireland and Atlantic Philanthropies are making the investment after a successful trial.

The news comes days after First Minister Peter Robinson sparked a confrontation with the Catholic Church when he described the current divided education system in Northern Ireland as "a benign form of apartheid".

Following the trials, where 60 post-primary schools have been providing shared classes for Catholics and Protestants, another 58 schools will form partnerships to share education.

This 'Phase two' of the scheme will include primary schools and special schools.

The news follows a survey that found 74% of pupils said they enjoyed sharing classes with pupils of a different religion.

It also showed that 68% said they had made friends with children from the other community.

Alliance Education Spokesperson Trevor Lunn has today welcomed the development and said the Government must follow their example to make significant long-term savings.

"The provision of this funding is excellent news for education here. The massive success of the pilot scheme underlines the need for Government to do more to promote shared education.

"Everyone knows that sharing works and segregation costs us £1bn annually.

"This funding will make a big difference here in terms of providing a broader range of subjects and improving community relations," he said, insisting that the Government "must follow the example set by the International Fund for Ireland and Atlantic Philanthropies and invest in sharing to make massive savings in the long-term".

Earlier this month, experts in 'Early Childhood' from across the world flew into Northern Ireland to hear the results of in-depth research project that Early Years - the organisation for young children.

The research which assessed the impact of the 'Media Initiative for Children Respecting Difference Programme', was developed by Early Years and the Peace Initiatives Institute in the USA and aimed at pre-school children aged 3-4 years old,.

It was conducted by a multidisciplinary research team from Queen's University, Stranmillis University College and the National Children's Bureau (NCB).

Early Years Chief Executive, Siobhan Fitzpatrick explained: "What the evidence of this research shows is that with children as young as three, that this form of approach can have an impact on preventing the adoption of sectarian attitudes.

"We are delighted with the positive findings of the research. It is the accumulation of years of work and it is an important platform from which we can continue to develop tools for tackling segregation, discrimination and separation in our society."

Early Years now plans to take this programme to scale across its network of 1,200 early childhood services in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and aims to further develop the programme for older and younger children.

(BMcC/GK)