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Northern Ireland: Integrated Schools

My Lords, yes, I was referring not to teacher training colleges but to the norm of further education colleges at post 16 and the two universities. No one would say that further education colleges ought to be run on religious or sectarian grounds. Yet at 16 or 17, when children come out of the sectarian sectors and go on to further education, they meet people from the other community probably for the first time. I have met youngsters myself who have never until the age of 16 or 17 met, spoken with or been in close proximity to someone from the other community. It is unbelievable to those of us who are not familiar with the detail of Northern Ireland. I cannot help but contrast this Chamber tonight with last Monday evening, when, with others—I will not call them the Northern Ireland windbags, because that would be very unfair, and they would be after me for the future—we did not have a wide-ranging debate. I know that there is an argument about the Orders in Council, but the real time to come and debate education in Northern Ireland for 90 minutes was tonight. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, hit the nail on the head: they are not there, except for the participants in the debate. One asks why. It is true that the Government have a statutory duty to encourage and facilitate the development of integrated education—that is to say, education at school of Protestant or Roman Catholic pupils. It is obvious to say it, given the debate tonight. It is a vision that will benefit all areas of life, in all sections of the population of Northern Ireland. The Government take their responsibility seriously. We recognise that integrated education is an important building block towards creating conditions necessary for long-term peace and stability in Northern Ireland. It is actually crucial and fundamental. Over the financial year 2006-07, we will provide the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education with over £0.5 million to develop and support integrated education across Northern Ireland. We will provide the integrated schools with over £68 million in recurrent funding, and allocate about £25 million in capital expenditure for grant-maintained integrated schools alone. I realise there is a sensitivity about the decision on the four schools, but other schools that have been referred to have been approved to be integrated. Since 1998, the Government have provided £1.5 million to the Integrated Education Fund to support the development of integrated education, and since 1998 the number of integrated schools has risen from 34 to 56 and, as has been said, the number of pupils attending those schools has more than doubled to almost 18,000. These are considerable investments and significant achievements that demonstrate the support for the integrated sector. The Department of Education has operated a twin-track approach to the development of integrated education, establishing new schools if they meet the relevant criteria and allowing existing schools to transform to integrated status where a majority of parents agree to it. The latter is certainly recognised as a more cost-effective method, because it obviously does not involve major capital investment, though it does involve some. That is not to say that it is perfect all the way down the line. I am told that there are two integrated schools in Northern Ireland with no pupils from the other, minority religion. So this is not a straightforward or a perfect scenario. You do not open the school and have parents from the other religion come rushing in. But we offer practical assistance with the policy of transformation in a number of ways. The Department of Education published and distributed to every school in Northern Ireland the booklet Transformation: An Information Pack for Schools. It is updated annually and contains practical information on the process of transformation, including the legal requirements on balloting parents and the development process. The booklet is available in hard copy or on the department’s website. The Department of Education receives an annual budget to help schools with the transformation process. The budget for 2006-07 is some £278,000. This assists schools in the initial stages of the transformation process and with the employment of a teacher from the minority community to assist with religious education. In March 2006, the Government provided the Integrated Education Fund with an additional three-quarters of a million pounds for the delivery of an agreed plan. The main emphasis of the approved plan is to develop opportunities for existing schools to transform to integrated status and to provide additional support for transformed schools. It is to be hoped that delivery of the plan proves fruitful for the sector. When discussing the level of support offered for integrated education by the Government, I have to dispute the claims of the integrated sector about the number of children who do not receive a place in an integrated school each year. Figures ranging from 600 to more than 1,000 are mentioned with impunity. Indeed, I believe that the figure of 500 was mentioned tonight. These figures do not tell the whole story and devalue the case for pushing forward integrated education, as I shall explain. To reach these numbers, people are including all children turned away, regardless of the preference stated. The reality regarding numbers, places and applications is that there is no significant shortfall of places in the integrated sector. The appropriate figure for assessing the popularity of the integrated sector is the number of parents who want their children to enter that sector and for whom it is the first choice. That is what parental choice is about. It is inappropriate to then add parents who expressed first choice for what I will call a sectarian sector and second choice for the integrated sector. In this case, 95 per cent to 100 per cent of first choice places are available. You cannot include preferences in the calculation of parents who expressed a higher preference for a non-integrated school. As I say, for the current school year and the previous two, places were available in the integrated sector for the children of 95 per cent to 100 per cent of parents who expressed a first preference for that sector. Therefore, there is no shortfall of places in the post-primary sector.