End NI's RC Schools, Says Robinson

Education in Northern Ireland may be facing a shake-up after Peter Robinson, the Stormont Assembly's First Minister, denounced church schools as a "benign form of apartheid".

He said at the weeknd 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."

The Alliance Education Spokesperson Trevor Lunn has also said he is encouraged that Peter Robinson can see the the need to address segregation in our schools system and has said the best way to do this is through having more shared and integrated education

Stormont MLA Trevor Lunn said: "I am glad Peter Robinson can see that there is apartheid in our education system but it's far from benign. Division is totally wrong and it hinders us from creating a united community.

"Also, the only way to tackle this issue is through more shared and integrated education.

"It would be shameful if the cost of division was not addressed quickly, and the current budgetary challenges should focus people's minds even more on this.

"Alliance makes ending segregation our number one priority and I am glad that others like Peter Robinson are recognising this massive drain on our resources. It's imperative that we now see swift action to tackle division in our education system."

However, Sinn Fein MLA John O'Dowd said that it was "little more than a thinly disguised sectarian attack on Catholic education, parents and children".

"The DUP do not seek an Integrated education system they seek the end of the Catholic education sector, there is a difference. The DUP look upon the catholic education sector as conspiracy against the northern state. They seek all our children to be educated in the image of a protestant state for a protestant people," he fumed.

"Sinn Fein will defend the rights of parents and children to educational choice and we will not allow a petty sectarian DUP agenda to contaminate the education system.

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)