‘Indisputable’ demand for integrated schools but challenges remain 25 years after Belfast Agreement

Hugh Odling-Smee still remembers the special assembly held at his integrated school after Enniskillen was bombed by the IRA in 1987, killing 11 people.

The day after the attack on a Remembrance Sunday gathering in the Co Fermanagh town, teenage pupils and staff at Lagan College in Belfast gathered to discuss the atrocity.

“There was a sense that it was met head on,” he said. “A challenge like that, an atrocity like that happening, was really difficult. Because we had people who were republicans in the school, people who were nationalists, unionists, loyalists, and none as well, people like me.

“And so how do we talk about that? How do we try to process what has happened?

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“And I think that always hammered home to me both the challenge of integrated education in a society like this, but also the opportunities as well.”

Now an arts manager, Olding-Smee attended Lagan College, Northern Ireland’s first integrated school, in the 1980s.

At the time, only a small fraction of pupils in the North went to integrated schools, where Catholic and Protestant pupils are taught together.

[ The Belfast Agreement, 25 years later: ‘Wise up Daddy, things aren’t like that any more’ ]

His daughter, Martha (12), has spent her entire education at integrated schools - first at Lough View Integrated Primary in Belfast and now Lagan College.

Twenty-five years ago, just 56 per cent of people said they would prefer to send their children to mixed-religion schools. But, according to the latest Northern Ireland Life and Times survey, which aims to trace demographic changes, that figure has now risen to 69 per cent.

Despite changing public opinion, the number of students attending integrated schools has risen slowly - from 2.4 per cent in 1998, the year the Belfast Agreement was signed, to 8 per cent at present.

There seem to be a lot of myths around integrated schools. There was concern that Protestant children would be refused entry, and that other groups were given priority

The agreement pledged “to facilitate and encourage integrated education” as an essential part of creating “a culture of tolerance at every level of society”.

However, most of the North’s schools remain split into two categories - “Maintained” schools which have links to the Catholic Church and mainly cater for Catholic pupils, and “Controlled” schools which are state-run and mainly cater to Protestant students.

[ What has Belfast Agreement delivered for the North’s youth? ]

Thousands of young people also attend selective “Grammar” schools, which are generally divided on religious grounds.

Canadian-born Meg Hoyt said she and her husband considered integrated education but sent their four children to the nearest state-run school, Cavehill Primary in north Belfast.

“That trumped that desire to have them go to an integrated school, we really wanted them to be able to walk (to school),” she said.

Since the school is already “demographically integrated”, Hoyt said, a group of parents wanted it to become an integrated institution.

“It became quite a fraught conversation, to be honest. There seem to be a lot of myths around integrated schools. There was concern that Protestant children would be refused entry, and that other groups were given priority,” she said.

“Covid happened and then all of the conversations kind of stopped. We didn’t get the chance to work through all of the feelings that had come to the surface.”

However, she said discussions about possible integration have “shifted some things”.

[ Mixed marriages in the North: ‘Some didn’t speak to me for 10 years after I married a Catholic’ ]

“For the first time in my memory, they celebrated St Patrick’s Day,” she said, and there have also been some discussions around the wearing of Remembrance Day poppies.

“We have to make sure that teachers are saying: ‘People wear poppies and people don’t wear poppies, and that’s fine’. The school has made moves in that direction, without becoming an integrated school.”

In 1998, there were 33 integrated schools in the North, whereas there are 68 now. While integrated schools are oversubscribed, dozens of segregated schools across Northern Ireland are at risk of closure due to having have too few pupils.

When I was growing up, it would be ‘Where are you from? What school did you go to?.... I’m really hoping that for my kids, by going to integrated education, that question becomes irrelevant

Several schools - including the state-run Gillygooley Primary in Omagh, Co Tyrone, Straid Primary in Ballyclare, Co Antrim, and St Anne’s Primary in Donaghadee, Co Down - are attempting to become integrated to avoid being shut down.

State-run Bangor Academy, one of the North’s largest schools with 1,835 pupils, will ballot parents in June about whether it should become integrated, saying the move would be “an affirmation of our current ethos and values”.

Only one Catholic Maintained school has become integrated - Seaview Primary in Glenarm, Co Antrim.

Former teacher Yvonne Day (54), from Belfast, was educated at a selective grammar school in the city. As one of just two Catholics at the school, she found the experience difficult and wanted a different option for her own children - all four of whom have attended Lagan College.

“Certainly when I was growing up, it would be ‘Where are you from? What school did you go to?’ So you’re suddenly in that question, you’re labelling somebody,” she told Belfast-based investigative website The Detail.

“I’m really hoping that for my kids, that by going to integrated education, that question becomes irrelevant.”

She said some parents are not able to send their children to integrated schools because they are over-subscribed.

“I suppose when people have tried their best to go integrated, and then are forced to send their children to non-integrated secondary level education, that’s upsetting for people, they’re going against their principles,” she said.

For decades, integrated education has been seen as mainly an option for middle-class families. However, 10 of the 50 most deprived secondary schools, including in Belfast, Derry and Craigavon, are integrated.

School deprivation is measured by the number of pupils who are entitled to free school meals. On average, 30.5 per cent of pupils at integrated schools are in receipt of free school meals, compared to 27 per cent at segregated schools.

Under the Fresh Start Agreement, which aimed to secure the full implementation of the Stormont House Agreement, £500 million (€569 million) of UK government funding was announced for shared and integrated education in March 2016.

Six years later, little over 10 per cent (£51.3 million) of this funding had been spent.

When asked about the low spend, a spokesman for the Department of Education said: “Spend to date is as expected and the department envisages that all funding will be utilised.”

Gráinne Clarke, from the Integrated Education Fund (IEF), a charity set up in 1992 to support the growth of the sector in Northern Ireland, said “in many ways parents and society are much further ahead than our politicians”.

“What is indisputable here is the demand for integrated education, and we need our political institutions to play catch up to that demand and to take the opportunities that are there,” she said.

The department, she said, must plan for new integrated schools and “proactively address the segregation that still exists in our education system”.

A small number of state or Catholic-run schools have a mix of Catholic and Protestant pupils similar to that in integrated schools. with 18 such institutions having at least 25 per cent enrolment from both Catholic and Protestant students.

But Clarke said integrated education “requires something so much more”.

“Integrated education is by design, it is proactive planning and celebration of the cultural differences in diversity that exists in our society,” she said. “And 25 years on from the Good Friday Agreement it is a key way to help address some of the division and segregation that still persists in our society.”

Schools are also facing huge demographic changes.

Census figures show that the percentage of people identifying as “Other” - neither Catholic nor Protestant - increased from around 3 per cent in 2001 to 21 per cent in 2021.

In 1998, 51 per cent of pupils were Catholic, 42 per cent Protestant, and 6.5 per cent “Other”. Today, the percentage of Catholic pupils (50 per cent) has remained roughly the same, but Protestants now only account for 30 per cent and the proportion identifying as ‘Other’ has risen to 19 per cent.

Prof Tony Gallagher, an education expert at Queen’s University Belfast, said the increase in the “Other” category was significant.

According to the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education, which promotes the development of integrated education, integrated schools should aspire to an annual intake of at least 40 per cent of Catholic pupils and the same for Protestant pupils.

Only one integrated school - New-Bridge Integrated College in Banbridge, Co Down - meets those guidelines. Just over a third of integrated schools - 26 - have either less than 20 per cent of Catholic or Protestant pupils.

Prof Gallager said the figures raise important questions.

“One of the challenges to Catholic or Controlled schools is that even if you’re committed to doing community relations work, it’s very difficult to do if you don’t have the other voice in the room,” he said.

“The same thing applies to an integrated school. Because if you have a group that’s a small minority in an institution, then the minority might be less prepared to engage openly.”

Luke Butterly is an investigative reporter with Belfast-based the Detail.