Integrated Education

The Integrated Education movement in Northern Ireland is an attempt to bring together children, parents and teachers from both Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions, the aim being to provide a balanced education, while allowing the opportunity to understand and respect all cultural and religious backgrounds. The Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE), a voluntary organisation, promotes, develops and supports Integrated Education in Northern Ireland.

Education in Northern Ireland is highly religiously segregatedFact|date=August 2008, with 95% of pupils attending either a maintained (Catholic) school or a controlled school (mostly Protestant,but open to all faiths and none), both effectively funded by the state. Teaching a balanced view of some subjects (especially history) is difficult in these conditions.Fact|date=September 2007

The first integrated school, Lagan College, was established in Belfast in 1981 by the campaigning parent group All Children Together. In 1985 three more integrated schools opened in Belfast offering parents in the city an alternative to the existing segregated schools.

There are currently 58 Integrated Schools comprising 19 Integrated Second Level Colleges, and 39 Integrated Primary Schools. In addition there are 19 Integrated Nursery Schools, most of which are linked to primary schools.

Initially such schools met with considerable oppositionFact|date=August 2008 from certain local politicians who were angry at an alleged favouritism in funding being shown to them by the GovernmentFact|date=August 2008. They felt the state controlled school system should be regarded as the true model of integration and that only the existence of maintained schools preserved a culture of segregation in Northern Ireland. However, every integrated school in Northern Ireland is heavily over-subscribed.Fact|date=June 2007

See also

*List of Integrated Schools in Northern Ireland

External links

* [http://www.nicie.org Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education ]
* [http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/ni/educ.htm Conflict Archive on the INternet - Education in Northern Ireland]