Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
Oral evidence: Integrated Education, HC 373
Wednesday 28 February 2024
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 28 February 2024.
Members present: Sir Robert Buckland (Chair); Stephen Farry; Sir Robert Goodwill; Claire Hanna; Carla Lockhart; and Jim Shannon.
Questions 31 to 50
Witnesses
I: Dr Keir Bloomer, Chairperson, Independent Review of Education (Northern Ireland); Peter Osborne, Chair, Integrated Education Fund; Roisin Marshall, Chief Executive, The Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE); Dr Matt O’Neill, Chairperson, Integrated AlumNI.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– [IED0058] - Integrated Education Fund
– [IED0033] - Integrated AlumNI
Witnesses: Dr Keir Bloomer, Peter Osborne, Roisin Marshall and Dr Matt O’Neill.
Q31 Chair: This is a meeting of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee. It is another session in our inquiry into integrated education in Northern Ireland. I am delighted to be joined by our first panel this morning; we have a hybrid panel. In person, welcome to Dr Keir Bloomer, who is the chair of the Independent Review of Education in Northern Ireland; Peter Osborne, chair of the Integrated Education Fund; and Dr Matt O’Neill, chairperson of Integrated AlumNI. Online, welcome to Roisin Marshall, who is chief executive of the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education. Welcome to all our witnesses.
I will begin by opening the first question. This is to everybody at this stage, apart from Dr Bloomer; I will have a separate question for you, Dr Bloomer. I want to ask first, perhaps starting with Peter, what the role of your organisation is and how it fits in to the integrated education sector. As you answer, identify the key challenges you think arise for the sector itself.
Peter Osborne: I am happy to start and hear from Roisin and Matt also. Can I first say how delighted we are that the Committee is looking at this issue? It is an issue of considerable importance for Northern Ireland now and for the years to come. It is really important that you understand the issues as well as come up with some recommendations, which I hope we will agree with.
I also want to say that this is not about them and us within the education system in Northern Ireland. Like almost everybody, I have gone through one of the main sectors, in my case the controlled sector. I have worked with many schools within that sector and the maintained sector, at one time working with 28 primary schools. I have a great deal of admiration for the quality of teaching that goes on and the commitment of teachers to improving the education and standing of their pupils. This is not about them against us, from our perspective.
The Integrated Education Fund is a charity. It is a charity that is made up of representatives who are from all of the sectors, including the integrated sector. It carries out its business in three separate ways. First, it conducts independent research into education issues. You may have heard from some of those researchers, Stephen and Matt, in previous sessions. Some of the research they have done, which has been incredibly powerful, around isolated pairs or the additional costs associated with the type of education system that we have in Northern Ireland has been very impactful.
It is also an organisation that carries out advocacy work on behalf of the integrated sector. That is a name that essentially means that our aim is to have children and young people learn and develop together in the same classroom. That is a very important distinction and wherever that happens that is something that we will support, regardless of sectors or geographical area.
It is also an organisation that supports parental engagement through the Integrate My School campaign. There are 71 integrated schools at the minute. Every single one of them, almost without exception, has been set up by parents, not by the Department or other education bodies. We try to engage with the parents to increase support for integrated schools. I am delighted that, over the last four years, there has been a growth like at no other time, where every other month a school has voted to go integrated. There have been 25 schools in the last four years.
Despite integrated education being a fundamental part of the Good Friday agreement, the increase in the number of schools that were integrated over the 20 or 21 years after the agreement was about two or three points of an increase. We have had a very substantial increase since 2019. I do not know how brief you wanted us to be.
Q32 Chair: That is a good start, Mr Osborne. We will have plenty of opportunity to warm to the themes.
Dr O’Neill: Thank you so much for having me here today. It is a privilege to be in front of this Committee. I would like to echo Peter’s comments that he made about integrated education. AlumNI has just celebrated our 10th birthday. We are a charity. We are a group of members who have attended integrated schools beforehand. We are alumni from it; it is in our title. We have come together to make our voice heard in how we think there are benefits to integrated education and to share our own experience of going through the school system.
We are a membership-based organisation. We have three core points that we constantly try to campaign on in our advocacy work. First, we would like to see adequate funding for integrated schools. Secondly, we would like to have a task force or a permanent person within the Department of Education working on integrated education so we actually have someone to engage with. The third is that we would like more of an information campaign on what all different educational options are for everyone in Northern Ireland so parents are empowered.
We would work off those three core themes. There is more nuance to that, but I happy to get into that later in the discussion. To recap, we are a member-based organisation. We bring together passionate voices who went through the integrated education system.
Roisin Marshall: I am very glad to see Dr Bloomer and the panel of the Independent Review of Education’s report. For us, this is about the fact that we live in a divided society. All schools in Northern Ireland have a diverse range of pupils and teachers within them, but integrated education’s mission is very specifically about the two major communities in Northern Ireland and educating children from both culturally Catholic and culturally Protestant backgrounds together in the one school, as well as other cultures and religions and those of no faith background or other philosophical beliefs.
As a non-departmental public body, funded by the Department of Education, with external funding from the NIO and the DFA, we would like a high-level position on integrated education from the Department of Education, the Executive Office and the Assembly. The greatest challenge for us is that we are a very small part of the educational landscape, with 71 schools representing about 6.5% of the schools estate. It is very small.
Peter and Matt talked there about the growth particularly in the last number of years, but the growth over the last 43 years has been roughly about two integrated schools coming on board per year. We have moved away from the development of new schools because there are too many schools in Northern Ireland. We really want to make a difference to the reconfiguration of the schools estate and, in that, the promotion of integrated education as an option for those parents who want it.
We work with our educational partners from all sectors, in particular the two lead bodies for area planning: the Education Authority and the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools. We are simply asking for the ability and the proper, appropriate resourcing for those schools within our schools estate that see the transformation to integrated status as something that is beneficial to their school community and the wider community.
This is my last point. It is very important to say that over the last five years we have grown by 1%. If you think about that, that is roughly over 3,000 places created just to get 1%. As I said in our submission, that would take about 200 years for that to have any great effect. We are asking that there is a high-level position taken on integrated education and that we are working and want to work with our educational partners to have that as an option for those parents who want it, as well as any other creative and innovative ideas that come on board.
Q33 Chair: You are already showing admirable economy. I am very pleased. It has helped set the context. I am going to come to Dr Bloomer now, because I wanted to ask you about the findings of your independent review, your characterisation of the education system in Northern Ireland overall and, more specifically, the integrated education sector. I would love to hear from you.
Dr Bloomer: Thank you very much for inviting me. As you know, our review was a consequence of New Decade, New Approach. It had an extremely wide remit. It was not concerned specifically with integrated education, although that obviously is an important issue and we spent a considerable amount of time looking at it.
So far as the conclusions that we reached in relation to children learning together, as we tended to describe it—I am quoting here from the report—“Education has a vital role to play in promoting cohesion in a post-conflict society. Much more needs to be done to educate young people together”, and we “would wish to see the option of attending an integrated school or a jointly managed community school”, which I can explain if you want me to do so, “within a realistic travelling distance available to all families as soon as possible”.
We were firmly committed to the idea that there should be greater learning together. We thought that that had to be balanced, however, against the right of families to choose among a range of different kinds of schools. It has to be accomplished without legislation that effectively eliminates some of the choices that exist at the present moment.
You asked me how I would characterise education in Northern Ireland. I was coming to it new in 2021 and we were presented with voluminous briefing material from the Department of Education. It was a source of constant astonishment to me that every time I turned the page I found a different kind of school, governing body or advocacy organisation. There is the appearance of an enormous amount of complexity.
The complexity is not as great as is first apparent. If I were asked now whether I think that the education system in Northern Ireland is more complicated than the education system in, say, England, I think I would say no. There is greater complexity in England, but there is, undoubtedly, a great deal of complexity in Northern Ireland, some of it superficial, and a fair amount of wasted energy in relation to a very large number of competing arm’s-length bodies, advocacy bodies and so on. There is, unquestionably, a degree of excessive complexity in the system.
Chair: I will now pass on to Jim Shannon, who is going to show the economy in his questions that he is famed for.
Jim Shannon: That is going to be incredibly challenging, but I will certainly do my best. Gentlemen, can I welcome you? Roisin, it is nice to see you as well. Roisin, I think that the last time we met would have been at Strangford College at the prizegiving. Is that right? You were the guest speaker, if my recollection is correct.
Roisin Marshall: That is correct. We had a lovely conversation, so thank you, Jim.
Q34 Jim Shannon: It is lovely to see you as well. Dr Bloomer, you mentioned about the complexity of education in Northern Ireland. To give a quick summary of complexity, I attended a boarding school for five years in Coleraine. My three boys attended Glastry College. In terms of two of my grandchildren, Katie-Lee attends Strangford College in Carrowdore and Mia attends Kircubbin Integrated Primary School. My other grandchild attends Victoria Primary School in Newtownards. You talk about complexity. That is it in all its complexity.
What is important is choice. That is probably the issue that I want to refer to. I am ever mindful that, over the last few years, as Roisin mentioned, Portaferry, Kircubbin and Loughries are just three primary schools that went integrated in my constituency in the last while. I have been very much involved with the integrated primary school and finding them accommodation and finally a school in Ballynahinch. I am always very conscious that people want to have choice.
To me, it is simple. Maybe I look at things very simply. For me, it is an easy way. I hope that everyone else can accept the simplicity that I see in the process. Choice is what people want. They want to have state schools if that is their choice, such as where my three boys attended. They want to have the choice of Catholic controlled maintained schools as well if that is a choice that they want, and they want to have the opportunity of attending integrated education as well.
My question will be very clear and simple. I am conscious of your requirements of us as questioners. With those three different streams of education, Catholic controlled maintained, state schools and integrated, for me, when it comes to the teaching process, people make their choice. They make their choice for what they see as the best academic achievement. I ultimately think that that is the goal that we are all trying to achieve.
For those who are in lower sixth and sixth form, I give the examples of my own constituency, where we have Movilla, Glastry, an integrated school in Carrowdore and St Columba’s in Portaferry, where they cannot really offer all of the opportunities for education at lower or upper sixth level because they just do not have the capacity. What they can do is do that together. My question is along those lines. How can we work together better across all the streams of education to deliver for our students, from a grammar and educational achievement point of view, which I think we can?
I point you to that example in my own constituency of Strangford, where the schools have come together to do that. I would like a more co‑ordinated approach to that, rather than letting the schools come together. In my humble opinion, there is a better way of doing it. I would like to get your thoughts on that.
Peter Osborne: Thanks, Jim, for the short question. It is a really important issue that you touch on. I would have a slightly different way of looking at it than that. There are a number of reasons why parents choose schools. Those are all very legitimate and reasonable reasons, whether it be academic achievement, the sports that are offered by the schools or proximity to where they live. Underlying all of that at the minute, because Northern Ireland has and is changing, is what I see as a parental preference in overwhelming numbers to have their children go to a school that is integrated.
When you look at poll after poll, at least two-thirds, if not three-quarters, of parents in these independent polls are expressing a preference to have their children and young people go to an integrated school, or at least a school where children and young people learn and develop together in the same classroom. That is coming from NINIS, the Northern Ireland Life and Times survey, LucidTalk and independent polls by newspapers and television programmes. It is there as a fact that that is what parents want for their children.
Q35 Chair: Can I focus it on this basis? There are a couple of challenges that we have to offer. This is to all the panellists. You have to ask about the reality about educational and academic attainment and achievement. It might be easier, perhaps, for me to do that and ask that question about whether academic achievement and attainment should be in the integrated sector. Some would say that it should not be.
Also, what would be the advantages of integrated education over shared education, which is a term and a reality that we hear so much about already in Northern Ireland education? Sorry to interrupt but I thought that a bit of focus there might help.
Peter Osborne: There is something else that I want to say in response to Jim but in terms of those two things as well, because they are important. We could go off on a whole different discussion about transfer tests and educational achievement. I come from a very working class Protestant background. No child in my class passed their transfer test and I found a different way into a grammar school. I have views on educational underachievement and the transfer test that are probably, by and large, reflected by many people within the integrated sector.
Could educational achievement and standards be better in every school in every sector? Yes, they could. Should we be trying to raise those standards across all sectors? Integrated is no exception compared to the other sectors as far as that is concerned. Some schools could do better and some schools are doing extremely well within it. Sorry, I have forgotten the second question that you asked.
Q36 Chair: It was the distinction between integrated and shared education and what the advantage is.
Peter Osborne: It is very simple. There will be all sorts of different things in it, but the difference is very simple. Integrated education is about children and young people in the same classroom all the time, wearing the same uniform. While they go to that school they will learn about each other’s backgrounds, cultures, histories and politics. They will accept and respect that. The integrated schools address those key issues that Northern Ireland still faces up front in a very constructive, positive way. They will play all sports.
They will not be like me, leaving my education as a teen, going to university and that is the first time that I had any meaningful conversation with somebody from a Catholic background. I like my sports, but I have never played a Gaelic sport because that is not what I was brought up doing. The same will be the case on the other side of the community. Integrated schools bring all of that together and put people from different backgrounds in the same classroom.
I am not saying anything negative about shared education, but I would prefer to use the expense to promote integrated than shared education, where you have different schools, maybe on the same site but different buildings, using the playgrounds maybe at different times. I go to Bosnia a lot. Experience around the world shows that having two schools under one roof actually accentuates the division, rather than making it better.
I will be brief. In terms of Jim’s other comment, I would do the parental choice in a different way. I am all in favour of parental choice. I am all in favour of parental preference. Let us make it real. If you ask some about it, they will say that they are in favour of it but come up with all sorts of reasons why what I am going to say cannot happen. A ballot to ask the parents of the school whether they want the school to go integrated costs about £2,000 to £3,000. It is an independent ballot.
The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and the President of Ireland said that, in the next 25 years, they would prefer integrated schools, with our children and young people in the same classroom together, becoming the norm, not the exception. I agree with that and I would hope that the Committee might explore that and agree with that too. Over the next 25 years, let us ask or require every school in Northern Ireland to have a ballot on whether it wants to go integrated. Let us give the parents the choice.
Let us put it to the parents: “What would you like to do in your school?” If those parents say, “We do not want to go integrated”, I will be the first to say, “That is fine. Good luck and anything we can do to help is grand”. The polls show that the majority of people will not do that. If every school over the next 25 years was asked to have that ballot, it would cost in the region of £150,000 a year. The savings if they go integrated in rationalising the estate, in revenue as well as capital terms, will way more than pay for that. Over the next 25 years, let us set that target: that integrated education becomes the norm, not the exception. Let us do the parental choice. Let us require every school to give parents the choice: “Do you want to go integrated?” At that sort of price, my goodness, it is a bargain.
Q37 Chair: I am going to come to Matt and, as I do so, open up this important strand of the debate. We have rights respecting schools. What do you think the integrated setting means in terms of a difference from that scenario? Are we just arguing about terms here, or is there something deeper behind this that makes quite a difference?
Dr O’Neill: I will tell my own personal story, because it reflects this. Jim, you talk about choice. I went to a state primary school. I am dyslexic. There was no funding to pay for the needs I needed to do my 11-plus, so grammar school was taken away as a choice from my parents. It is an issue when you are talking about choice. Are we actually empowering parents and people so they can actually send children to the schools they want? I very much welcome the Minister of Education’s announcement that there is going to be an extra £500 million for SEN. There are people who are neurodivergent and do not get that choice.
Building on that, the other dimension when you talk about that, Chair, is that, when I was deciding to go and selecting a school, I remember one day my brother coming home from school. He went to a state Protestant school in a very economically challenged area. He was talking about careers class and his friend stood up and said he wanted to be a commander. The teacher said, “Oh, the RAF. The British Armed Forces”. “No, UVF”, is what he said. I am very lucky that my mother was courageous enough to say, “Think about this different option here, son”, and send me. It was a very big moment for me in that sense and changed my life.
When you are talking about whether it is just a term, for me it is not. Integrated education is not simply about Protestant and Catholic. We must open the debate wider. Integrated education is much more about equality and diversity. When I went to an integrated school it was not simply just about the Protestant-Catholic dimension. It was also a safe space for those who maybe come from outside Northern Ireland, so that they can have a space to feel more likely to go. In 1981, when Lagan College first formed, the diversity in Northern Ireland was 1%. It is now around about the 14% mark and they would only go to schools.
On one level, they understood my dyslexia. They empowered me. They gave me a chance to excel. As you can tell—“Dr” is in front of my name—I was able to do very well, so I would challenge any of the academic arguments. If the school is properly resourced, the school can produce amazing well-rounded students that can go into the world and be advocates.
The other dimension was that I went to Hazelwood Integrated College and every year we went and did peace assemblies. We would bring in different symbols. As you probably know from being on this Committee, symbols are very important in Northern Ireland. We would go in and have those difficult conversations all the time and then they would be filtered down. Every day we would be having that.
I will finish off my comments by saying that it very much was that the hard work was being done every day. It truly was not until I left that I realised what I had had going to an integrated school and having that experience. Research has also constantly shown that children who are integrated and meet other people are much more likely to integrate better in society once they leave secondary school and go on. I do not think that it is simply just a name, term or buzzword. There is hard work going on every day by teachers and students. They are doing a great form of community work on the ground that is not fully acknowledged.
Roisin Marshall: Chair, you mentioned about the difference between shared education and integrated education. They are two very different things, as Peter pointed out. Integrated education is a management type of school, such as maintained, controlled or other maintained. Shared education is for all schools. The beauty of shared education is that it is about the collaboration of schools. Jim mentioned it and you mentioned it yourself, Chair. We need to have collaboration between schools. That is absolutely vital in Northern Ireland, as it is anywhere else. No school can be an island on its own. What the children and young people deserve through their education is the very best start in life.
Where we have collaboration between schools, some of that happens through the area learning communities, extended schools and shared education programmes also. In legislation, shared education is a programme between two or more providers. It is very different from integrated education and there should not be a competition. We need both in order to transform our education system to something where schools are looking after all of the children and young people in the area.
I need to state very clearly that I mentioned that integrated education is a very small part of the schools estate. Where the collaboration really comes into play between all our educational bodies and our lead authorities on planning for our schools estate, we need to work together in order to provide choice for our parents. I will reiterate again that integrated education is not a choice for every parent that wants an integrated education. It is very difficult, particularly at post-primary school level, to get into an integrated school.
You mentioned also about the academic aspect. I think that Peter mentioned this. Every school has the challenge of ensuring the very best education for the children within that school and providing the offer that gives different children different pathways. Like Matt talked about there with being able to for an integrated education, we like to believe that every child in the family can go to the same school. That is a very important point for us.
I will mention again that there is limited mixing of children from perceived cultural Protestant and Catholic backgrounds in our schools. That needs to change. Dr Bloomer and the panel of the Independent Review of Education noticed that and said, “How can we do that better?” The introduction of jointly managed community schools would be something great. We are all for that and want to give legs to that, but it is not a practicality just now. However, integrated education is a practicality. It is very simple, as Peter said. It is a very cost-effective way for a school community to make a decision. This is not going to disrupt the overall situation because most of the schools in Northern Ireland are either maintained or controlled.
You also mentioned rights respecting schools. I am very pleased to say that there are 29 schools in the whole of Northern Ireland that have a silver or gold award. Some 10% of integrated schools have a silver or gold award and only 3% of other schools, so it is something that integrated education really embraces. It is one of our measures or evidence that is used for the Excellence in Integrated Education Award. About 30 of the 71 integrated schools are going through that process at the minute. It is a very robust, self-evaluative process for a school to really nurture its ethos of inclusivity. The rights respecting schools is at the heart of that and is an excellent award for schools to go for. I will leave it there. I just wanted to make those key points.
Q38 Chair: I want to bring Dr Bloomer in. There might be some challenge about the notion that controlled schools are somehow automatically Protestant. They are technically non-denominational. I hear what Dr O’Neill says. I wonder, Dr Bloomer, whether you want to come in on that, or indeed on the general points about whether these are just words. Are these just descriptions or is there much more to this than meets the eye?
Dr Bloomer: To comment first on Mr Shannon’s actual question, he was asking whether we want to have more collaboration among schools. The answer to that is yes. The atmosphere among Northern Irish schools is undesirably competitive and adversarial. In our report, we stress the importance of things like reforming the entitlement framework, which facilitates collaboration between schools and colleges, and strengthening the area learning communities and much else besides, which is not particularly relevant to the issue of integrated education but is an answer to Mr Shannon’s point.
A very important area of common ground is apparent. All four of us are of the view that it would be desirable if a lot more children were learning together, including learning together on a full-time basis. At the same time, nobody has done anything other than support the notion of parental choice. Therefore the important issue is, given those principles, how we actually make it happen.
In her very first contribution, Roisin made an important point that there is a problem with creating new schools in a system that, if anything, has too many schools at the present moment and that something has to be done to reconfigure the schools estate. My review group totally agreed with that. One of the most important recommendations that we make is about a thoroughgoing review of the entire school estate of Northern Ireland, to be carried out over a limited period of time by an independent commission.
Roisin also referred to the current mechanisms for area planning and the roles of the Education Authority and CCMS. Quite frankly, this is not a process that is going well. The existing machinery does not really work, hence our recommendation of a fixed-term, independent and whole‑country review. Unless something like that is done, we will not see a growth in the number of jointly managed community schools or integrated schools, other than around the edges.
I know that Peter spoke in his very first contribution about the number of schools that have gone integrated within the last four years. That is true, but quite a lot of those schools are schools where one or other, or both, of the schools involved were threatened with closure. Parents saw integrated status as a way of avoiding closure.
The result of that is that a significant part of the recent expansion of integrated education is based on a growth in a number of schools that are on the margins of viability. Frankly, that is not the way forward. We need to have something a bit more dynamic than that. I would urge your Committee to think very seriously about the question of reviewing the entire school estate.
There are two other things I would like to say. One is about the difference between shared and integrated education. I do not differ from what has been said. In our review, we have suggested replacing the shared education programme with one that we call the learning together programme, which is a much more far-reaching programme than the existing one, in that all schools would be involved. It would be related to a mainstream curricular area, rather than, for example, occasional getting together for extracurricular activities, for instance.
Where I think our report is important is that we are suggesting that tackling the issue of children learning together requires a multi-pronged approach. The most important is ensuring that every family has geographically realistic access to a school in which children learn full-time together. I do not imagine that my colleagues here would disagree with that point at all. We also have in our strategy the point about revamping shared education in the way that I have just said. We have referred also to a requirement on schools to seek to diversify their pupil intake and report annually to the Department of Education on it and, as resources allow, an expansion in the number of joint campuses.
The final point I would make is about the nature of the choice that is offered in Northern Ireland. Until the advent of the Irish-medium sector, which is small and comparatively recent, there was no choice that was available that offered something that was educationally different, as opposed to different in terms of ethos and community and religious background. Essentially, the choice that is available, with that sole exception, is the choice that existed following the collapse of the first Education Secretary following the settlement in Northern Ireland in 1922. There are no Steiner schools or Montessori schools. There are no schools that are pioneering the use of new technology, distance learning and so forth. It is a choice that, while it is valued by many people and they should have the right to make it, to a significant extent is based in the thinking of yesterday rather than tomorrow.
Q39 Jim Shannon: Dr Bloomer, you are absolutely right. Take my area as an example: Portaferry, Kircubbin and Loughries. All were closing. They designated themselves as integrated education and they have survived and done well. I declare an interest: I have been on the board of governors of Glastry College for 37 years. That school has both sides of the community. There is St Columba’s in Portaferry. That is Catholic-controlled maintained and has both sides of the community. Movilla High School has both sides of the community. I do not think that it is exclusive to any one type of education; it is not.
Dr Bloomer, I want to ask you a question and I am not sure whether anyone else would want to come back; maybe, Roisin, you might want to. I was quite clear that I see advantages for all three education systems within Northern Ireland and the choice that people have. My question was about how we can better work together when it comes to education? For schools that cannot provide lower sixth choice of subjects, how can they come together and do that? I have tried to encourage that at Glastry, Movilla, St Columba’s and others. It is something that all sectors of education need to buy into.
I am really keen to get your ideas, Dr Bloomer and others as well, on how we can do that. Peter, you mentioned “them and us”. It is not about them and us. It is about working together. Let us see whether we can do that in a positive way.
Dr O’Neill: I will make my points quickly because I want a conversation. The first point is that you are talking about all of us working together. I feel that integrated education is at a disadvantage, because we do not have a voice in the Department of Education that we can go automatically into. The Executive Office should create a cross‑governmental Department within there for everybody to work for. That is something we can very much support. I totally agree, but we need to have that ability to actually engage.
Your second point is about mixed schools. By the way, I will follow up with a two-pager on any of the stats I mentioned in this. The Department of Education statistics show that only 7.2% of pupils in controlled schools are Catholic. In Catholic schools, only 1.2% of pupils are Protestant. Those were the Department of Education’s own statistics, so I feel that there is still very much more room there for more of what I would consider stronger integration.
In terms of, again, going back to the point of parental choice I completely agree that we need to have parental choice. Everybody should be informed, but I think there is a better and more imaginative way that we can think about how we can actually empower parents to make the best decision on what they feel for their children.
What I was trying to say earlier on—I was maybe too nuanced—is that I think there is a class issue here with this. We need to look into the class system in Northern Ireland and how it impacts lower working class families and how they can have better or easier access for their children to have a better educational future.
Peter Osborne: I have a few things. Absolutely, Jim, this should not be them and us. From an integrated education perspective, we want to work constructively with all sectors. I get a sense sometimes that that is not the same view with some others.
I want to touch on three things that you will be told, I suspect. First, I agree with a number of things that the independent review said, including the area planning system reform. That needs reform. You effectively have two systems of area planning that operate, one for each sector, rather than one independent system of area planning.
I disagree with the comments that schools go integrated because they are threatened with closure. The facts just do not sustain that. Roisin will probably have the facts more than me. Of the 25 schools that have voted to go integrated, nine have been approved. Five were not approved because of the threat of closure and the size. The others are still outstanding. About two-thirds of schools are not threatened with closure. A third of them might look at that as the last option. It is important to get those statistics right, because most schools that vote to go integrated or want to go integrated are good, sustainable schools that see the benefit of going integrated. You will be told other than that, but those are the facts and we need to work here based on facts, rather than perceptions or whatever is presented by some for whatever reason.
The second issue that you will be told about is around parental preference. Let me say it again: I fully support parental preference, absolutely. Let us give parents the preference. Let us give them a vote. Let us have, in the next 25 years, every single school in Northern Ireland required to have a vote on whether to go integrated. That is parental preference. Others will find reasons not to do that but, for £125,000 a year over the next 25 years, it is huge value. Let us go with parental preference. I am all in favour of it.
The third thing that you will hear is that other sectors have integrated already. There are some schools that are, but Matt is quite right. The official statistics show that about 1% of pupils in maintained schools are Protestant. Some 7% of pupils in controlled schools are Catholic. While the odd school is an exception to that, that is just the situation. Just for information, IEF is funding some independent research on the others, because that has been a phenomenon in recent years. My suspicion is that the others will broadly represent in each sector what the Protestant‑Catholic or Catholic‑Protestant breakdown is. In other words—I am going to choose one sector, but it could be the other sector—if you have one sector that is 60% Catholic and 1% Protestant, I suspect that the others will broadly represent that 60-to-one ratio as well.
Q40 Claire Hanna: What do you mean? Could you clarify what you mean there?
Peter Osborne: We are doing research on this, so we might have more information in the next six or 12 months. If you have, for example, 60% in a school saying that they are Protestant—I am going to change it now—1% Catholic and 39% other, I suspect that the others will probably broadly represent that 60-to-one breakdown.
Q41 Claire Hanna: Sorry, I do not know what you mean by the “broadly represent”. Do you mean that the others will be as in perceived background but not identifying?
Peter Osborne: There will be some new communities. They enrich this place so much and that is fantastic, but, broadly, they will be people who are brought up in one of the main Christian faiths.
Q42 Claire Hanna: They have chosen not to identify.
Peter Osborne: They have chosen to say other for different reasons. There are six or seven reasons why they might do that. That “What are you brought up in?” is a really important, fundamental question there, rather than what you actually identify with now. Many people do not attend church but will still be brought up with within that community background.
I went to a school from the controlled sector. I have no idea whether any Catholics went to that school. I am sure there were, but I tell you what: they would have been a small minority and they will have kept their heads down. That is why I do not know what community backgrounds there were or whether there were Catholics going to that school. The school handled it extremely well.
Jim, again, I have a huge amount of respect for the quality of teaching and how the staff deal with all sorts of matters within all of the sectors, but that is just the reality. If you are a minority within a school, I suspect you keep your head down. That should not be what happens in our education system.
This is going to be slightly twee. I would love the Committee to go to integrated schools and see what happens in those schools. Please do. We will organise a visit if other people cannot organise the visit. I was brought up in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s. I go to integrated schools and see the way those kids interact with each other. I went to a school where there were two pupils—I think they were in the lower sixth—and one was a Sinn Féin supporter and one was a DUP member and supporter and they went at it hammer and tong. I had visions of them starting a fight and having to intervene. They left, talking, and one of the other pupils came up to me and said, “Don’t worry. They are the best of friends. They will go out and they will be having lunch together and having great craic”, but they were a Sinn Féin and a DUP supporter.
You hear and see things like that. When I leave integrated schools after a visit, I genuinely have tears in my eyes because it is so different to what I experienced in the 1970s and 1980s. That is what we need to get to in Northern Ireland, where children and young people are educated together, knowing each other and respecting each other. This place, Northern Ireland, has far too much prejudice within it still. We still have not broken down those barriers. It is those relationships that will dismantle the prejudice that we still need to dismantle in our society.
Roisin Marshall: I want to reiterate the point that Peter was making there. There are 14 schools post resolution and pre-decision, so transforming schools in the system, and 10 of those are sustainable. I want to ensure that the panel understand that, yes, there have been a number of cases. My point in all this, and I have been saying this for many years now, having been involved in the one of the first shared education projects, is that we need to be having these conversations with schools that are unsustainable long before. I know that our partners in CCMS and the Education Authority have those conversations with schools, but the schools are not getting the message that, “You are not sustainable. You are unsustainable”.
As the non-departmental body for the Department of Education, we have to support any school that comes forward for transformation, but we would like to push for those conversations, as Dr Bloomer and the panel outlined, and having those conversations with small, unsustainable schools, maybe one, two or three, usually in a rural geographical area, but maybe not, just where there are too many schools.
Those conversations that are supported and enable those broader, wider communities to decide what type of educational provision they want in their area and to try to make that happen should be had. That could be an integrated school, or it may be a jointly managed community school or something else, but something that is agreed that enables our children and young people in that area to get the very best start in life.
Another thing that I want to say is that we are talking about the mixing in schools. About a third of the schools in Northern Ireland have no mixing of those from perceived Catholic or Protestant backgrounds, or at least those who identify, as Claire said, as being from them. About 15.5% of the schools have at least 10% of the minority community in them. Then you have about 56% that have less than the 10% mix. It is really important for us to understand. That is what our mission is. That is what we are trying to make different, and collectively, as all of the bodies that support integrated education.
It is not just about the mixing in an integrated school. It is the intentional and proactive ensuring that there are, or there is, a mix of those from those who identify as both Protestant and Catholic, those of other Christian faith backgrounds and those who have none or other religious or cultural backgrounds, ensuring that intentional mix. That is hard work. That is not easy. That is using the admissions criteria. That is using your marketing and your PR about your school, what you tell people about your open days and things about who you invite into your school in terms of assemblies. You mentioned the curriculum area. There are the different perspectives historically, the kind of literature that you promote within your school and the events that are celebrated.
It is all of those and tried and tested integrated schools all over Northern Ireland have been developing this practice, largely on their own, I would have to say, because there is not that resource there, apart from what we can do through the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education. It is really important that it is not just about the mix. It is what you do with the mix when you have it in the school.
My overriding evaluation from schools that have gone through transformation, or that have developed as new integrated schools over the last 40 years, is that they believe that that framework and management type of integrated education enables them, when they are challenged by parents, for example “Why are you celebrating that particular event and not this particular event?” or “Why are you doing that?” That constant balancing for schools is really tricky and needs to be properly resourced and thought about. There are some aspects of teacher development and so on, but there needs to be a larger emphasis on that from initial teacher education right through to professional learning within our teachers, and not just our teachers but also our classroom assistants and our support staff.
Chair: I am reminding everybody that we only have about 20 minutes of this session left. We need to focus now on specific questions. On that basis, I am going to come to Robert Goodwill, who has a specific point about the transformation process.
Q43 Sir Robert Goodwill: We have heard about some of the challenges facing the transformation process. Peter, it has moved from a snail’s pace, at one a year, to probably tortoise pace at one a month. Is it limited by demand? For example, are parents not wanting them? Is it supply in terms of funding? For example, a new build is probably the best carrot you can wave in front of parents. Is there pent-up demand not being met, or is it that people are still a little bit living in the past, as I think we heard earlier?
Peter Osborne: For the last four years, it has been one every other month, not one a month. It has been one every other month. It has been about six a year, just to be accurate.
Q44 Sir Robert Goodwill: That is even worse.
Peter Osborne: Yes, it is even worse; it is an older snail’s pace or whatever the phrase used was. You are right. To reiterate the point, because it is it is worth reiterating, integrated education was in the Good Friday agreement in 1998. Twenty-one years on, it had increased by two or three points, so it really was a snail’s pace. We have seen a marked increase over the last four years. I suspect that part of that is because organisations such as the IEF and NICIE have helped parents access how to register their support for integrated education a little bit better, but it is still clumsy and needs to be better.
It is really important to look at the polls and all our experience of this over the last number of years. I think that Northern Ireland has turned a corner around some of this stuff. Parents have had a different attitude to some of this over the last five or 10 years, compared to before. I think that parents are saying, “We want something different for our children and their children”, compared to what I lived through in the 1970s and 1980s. People will dismiss the polls. The fact is that independent polls from NISRA, the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, LucidTalk and independent media organisations continually, time after time, have said, if parents have a choice, two-thirds and more, up to three quarters, would prefer their children to go to integrated schools.
That includes the majority of voters, by the way, of each of the five main parties. It includes all community backgrounds, so I believe that there is a demand for it. That is why I say, to mirror the language of the Prime Minister, Secretary of State and President, let us make integrated education the norm, not the exception, in 25 years. Let us give parents the choice. For £125,000 a year over 25 years, let us give parents the choice in every school.
Chair: Could we really focus on specific points? It is really important because we only have 15 minutes left. Robert, I am particularly interested also in the points you want to raise.
Q45 Sir Robert Goodwill: Roisin, in your written evidence you talked about streamlining or reviewing the transition process. Are we talking about compulsory ballots, as we heard? What specifically should we be doing to make this process work more effectively?
Roisin Marshall: Historically, when a school was going through transformation, pre-2010 a school would have been given a significant investment in order to help with the transformation process. In those days it would have been perhaps a teacher who was able to provide the Catholic RE. That would have been maybe £30,000, £40,000 or £50,000 per school going through transformation.
Since 2013, the pot of funding for all of the schools transforming has been £20,000. As I said earlier, there are 14 schools going through the process of transformation. That is from maybe a school talking about it, so up to three years, taking a positive parental ballot, so up to three years, and maybe for the development proposal to be approved. Then we have to support them for five years after that.
If you divide £20,000 by 14 and include the eight schools that have to be supported for five years, it might as well be nothing. That is why we are relying on organisations, such as a charitable organisation such as the Integrated Education Fund, to support schools that are going through transformation. In 2023, that is not acceptable. The IEF has to income-generate across the world in order to support schools going through transformation and that is inexcusable.
I am being very specific here. We need to properly resource if we believe that integrated education can contribute to resolving the societal division that we have in Northern Ireland. Again, I stress that it is not the only thing, but it has proven that it can contribute. It needs to be properly resourced in order not just for the schools to do what they need to do, whether that is a change in name, marketing, PR and stuff that they need to do in order to promote their school in the community as a as a newly transformed school, but also for the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education to be able to support those schools, not just the grant‑maintained integrated schools that we have a very specific duty towards but for all integrated schools at leadership level, with their ethos in terms of how they do things.
We genuinely believe that this is really cost-effective and probably the biggest community relations project that we have in Northern Ireland through integrated schools. The schools get exactly the same funding as any other school. There is no difference in terms of that and we need to make sure that the schools have the proper support in order that the children and young people attending those schools have the very best integrated experience possible.
Sir Robert Goodwill: It is a resourcing issue.
Peter Osborne: I will caveat this with the fact that the IEF is exploring taking a judicial review around the implementation of the Integrated Education Act from the Department. That judicial review will focus on three things. The Integrated Education Act was passed three years ago. We are actually in talks about resourcing. The Department has allocated £50,000, 0.002% of its budget, and we are partly challenging them that that is just not enough to implement integrated education. That is in the context, of course, of £150 million being withdrawn through Fresh Start from 10 integrated schools and one shared integrated campus, so it has not exactly given life to the Integrated Education Act.
Secondly, the Integrated Education Act talks about setting targets. The Department has said, “We do not like those targets, so we are not going to set those targets. We are going to have other targets that are pretty limited”. Thirdly, the challenge will be based on the extremely slow nature of the work of giving life to parental preference.
Q46 Claire Hanna: We are really pressed for time, so I am going to combine a couple of questions. I will just say thank you, welcome and that I really value your work. I am going to ask each of you about the independent review and what it says about integrated. I am also going to ask you for your views on the 2022 legislation, what it leaves undone and the impact you said it has had on the sector. Dr Bloomer, how do you characterise the review’s findings on integrated? Specifically, could you comment on how the learning together project might work?
Dr Bloomer: We make absolutely clear in our report our support for the notion that more children should be educated together, both on a full-time basis and through the learning together project. We think that the range of measures that we offer represents a coherent package whereby that might be done.
I will comment on a matter that has been raised in the last few minutes, which is about the polls that show great support for integrated education. The change in the configuration of the school estate in Northern Ireland is fairly glacial. If it is true that the polls represent public opinion on that, it demonstrates that the mechanism for bringing about change is not working. That is why we are advocating the review of the school estate.
Incidentally, I will just touch on a point that Mr Shannon has twice asked us to answer and none of us has commented on, which is about sixth forms. A phenomenon in Northern Ireland over the last couple of decades has been the growth in the number of non-viable sixth forms, and that is part of the whole problem of transforming the school estate.
It is critically important that we review the mechanism, and I cannot see another mechanism that will have the same impact as what we are proposing in relation to reviewing the entire school estate, because we cannot make significant change by piecemeal change of individual schools or by the building of new schools in a country that already has too many schools.
I might briefly comment on the point that Peter has made in two of his comments about votes in schools. Having votes by the parental body of every school about whether they wish to become an integrated school or not may or may not be a good thing, but one thing that it is not is parental choice. Parental choice is about having the individual right to make choices for your child, and it is very important that we do not pretend that one thing is another thing. It is important to make that clarification.
You had a second point. I am sorry. I have not commented on it.
Q47 Claire Hanna: That is fine; that covers what I was going to ask. I might then move to you, Peter, if you could just comment on the review’s findings and recommendations on integrated and, broadly, sharing. Also, on the legislation, you mentioned a legal challenge and what you think it does and does not do.
Perhaps you might also comment on that withdrawal of funding, which I must say came as a shock to me on Friday night. I am not sure when you were made aware of that. It affects 10 schools, including Millennium and Forge in my constituency. Did you have advance notice of that? Have you had any assurances about what it means for commitment to integrated and for those specific schools?
Peter Osborne: I certainly did not get advance notice. I suspect you heard before I heard.
Claire Hanna: I heard when parents heard.
Peter Osborne: I probably heard around the same time. I got a text or two. It is extremely disappointing, I can tell you. For the schools involved, it is devastating. We are told that they will go into the general mix of departmental priorities in terms of capital builds, and I therefore assume that means they will be there with everybody else, and that is not what that Fresh Start funding was supposed to be about.
I have visited an integrated school where there are not just literally crumbling walls, but leaks in classrooms, with water dripping down from the ceiling. There is a school that is now not going to have a new build where—I have never seen this before—you hang up your coat and bag outside for the day. There is a little overhang. You are praying that the rain does not blow in a certain way, or else you are coming out to a soaked coat and bag, and goodness knows what is in the bag. Some of the buildings are in a disgraceful state of play.
We had no advance notice. I would love to know where the decision-making rested, because I am not entirely sure, but it is really disappointing.
I agree with a number of things within the independent review. I like the recommendation around area planning. The need for rationalisation is clear. It needs to be seized. There is a way of doing it, and I would urge the Committee to read, for example, the isolated pairs research that was independently carried out with 32 pairs of schools within a mile of each other in villages in Northern Ireland. One was maintained and one was controlled, so Catholic and Protestant majority people going to them, within a mile of each other. Of those 32 pairs or 64 schools, 26 of the 32 pairs are below the threshold for sustainability.
The area planning system will not say, “Let us talk to the schools to make or sustain an integrated school in that village”, and if one of those schools closes and the kids are bussed to the nearest school within that sector, then I suspect that village will go single identity within 10, 20 or 25 years. That is hugely socially significant in Northern Ireland. It is almost allowing a Balkanisation of parts of Northern Ireland, and it is very damaging. The area planning system needs to change. We proactively have conversations to make those schools integrated, which will help with the rationalisation of the estate as well.
Where I do take issue with the independent review is that a mistake was made at the start in saying, “We have made recommendations based on what we think is possible”, rather than what we think is right. When you go down the road in Northern Ireland of what is possible, you sometimes go and have lower thresholds of what you want to achieve, because that is the only thing that can be delivered. That was a slight mistake.
On the jointly managed schools, I have no issue with that except that, when they go into a system of consultation through to the Department of Education and others, what might come out the other end is not what was intended to start with. That would cause me some concern.
As Keir knows because I have said it to him, the word “integrated” was dropped when the review talked about jointly managed schools, so it was mentioned at the start and then it hardly gets mentioned after that. I do not know if that is deliberate; I hope it is just accidental.
The priority for me is not the word “integrated”; the priority is children and young people being educated together in the same classroom. If that is jointly managed, that is okay, but it needs to be done properly.
Q48 Claire Hanna: Roisin, I might pick up with you, if you do not mind, about the recent legislation. Peter had mentioned a legal challenge. What are the implications for integrated education? What was good about that and what did you not like about it?
Roisin Marshall: What is really important to say is that a number of the recommendations from the independent review of integrated education, which came out in 2017, were shifted across into the independent review of education. At that stage, one of the recommendations was that we would have a more up-to-date, broader definition of integrated education rather than that which we had in the 1986 order, which was something to the effect of “reasonable numbers of Protestants and Catholics”. That is about all that we had.
We were really encouraged that that definition is broadened out. Aspirationally, this is not just about the mix of cultures and religions and including reasonable numbers of those from Protestant and Catholic communities, other religions and those of no particular religious background. It is also about the socioeconomic piece, which we are very aware of. Our statement of principles that we have had in place for many years now talks about social responsibility, parental involvement, and faith and values. That socioeconomic, aspirational element is very important, wanting to include all children from all different backgrounds and abilities. Again, there is an intentional process involved in doing that, ensuring that children and young people can come into the school and find different pathways.
For integrated education, the legislation has been very positive in the fact that we now have a much broader definition of what integrated education is. Aspirationally, the integrated schools go through that process as they come on board as an integrated school and as they develop through to embedding their ethos through our integrated education framework. It is a framework. We would very often describe this as another school improvement tool. It is something that you can use in order to make the educational experience for the children and young people the very best possible.
With the Integrated Education Act, there also come some challenges. There is a myth out there. A number of colleagues from different organisations have stated that this is somehow putting one sector above another. The biggest growth in integrated education has been in controlled integrated status, so I only see this as a benefit for the broader, diverse controlled sector, if you like, that has many different types of schools.
I see possibly through the independent review and their recommendation of jointly managed community schools that perhaps Catholic-maintained management types could also be involved. It is important that everybody is able to be involved in the conversation. Particularly with the independent review of education, I love the idea that everybody can be involved and we can create something, but this is about communities deciding, with the help of the support bodies, what type of educational provision they would like in the area.
In relation to sixth forms, again, that was one of the recommendations in the independent review of integrated education. We need to really pay attention to the fact that every post-primary school in Northern Ireland cannot deliver all the pathways that are required for all our children and young people. This is not just the academic path, but also the path for all our children, including those who have special educational needs and so on.
We need to really be thoughtful, over the next 20 years, that we deliver on an education system that is fit for purpose. Large sixth form provision in areas is the solution, and that came out in the independent review of education.
Q49 Claire Hanna: You mentioned briefly about the integrated controlled concept. More and more schools are choosing integrated, including Harding and Cairnshill in my constituency, and that is really welcome. They have tended to come from the controlled and not so much from the Catholic and maintained. How do you account for that?
Roisin Marshall: I have always been an advocate and used to say things like, “We can have Catholic integrated schools”. There is not the provision in legislation for that, but having taught in maintained schools and having gone to them my entire schooling, there is a desire there. I know Eve will be on later talking from the perspective of the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools, and there is a desire there to be as inclusive as possible. As they often say, they are Catholic schools but not schools for Catholics.
I go back to Dr Tony Gallagher’s recent research, where just stating a desire to be something is not enough. The statistics, as I have mentioned several times today, have not changed significantly since 1998 in terms of that mixing within schools.
We are going to have to think very collaboratively and thoughtfully about how we do that as we go forward so that—and this is what I liked about the independent review of education—all schools are thinking about how they do that better, so that there is a chance that children will meet from pre-school right through the education system, and not for the first time when they leave school.
Claire Hanna: Yes, absolutely. There is loads more that I want to ask, but we are really under pressure.
Q50 Carla Lockhart: Thank you to the panel for your comments this morning. I have all sectors of school in my community and my constituency. I respect and value them all, and respect parental choice with regard to where a parent decides to send their child.
However, the remarks this morning, I have to say, have been somewhat disappointing from a number of the panel. I feel they have been very derogatory towards the controlled sector. I feel they have been dismissive, and I would absolutely refute the characterisation around controlled sector schools that you have to “keep your head down” if you are from another religious background. I am still in shock around the recounting about a comment about a commander of the UVF, giving a perception that controlled sector schools are recruiting grounds or of that nature.
I want to put very clearly on record that we have amazing controlled sector schools across Northern Ireland, and I would refute as well the perception that has been given that controlled sector schools are closed shops for other people. I look at my own constituency. I have one controlled sector school where 40% are Catholic, 40% are Protestant and 20% are other, and that is just one example. I would certainly ask that more work in reality is done by members of the panel.
This is a comment for Dr Bloomer. In relation to the Integrated Education Act, I believe it elevates one sector, and that is evidenced with regards to resourcing. We have already heard the arguments around potential closures being averted because of changing to integrated education.
Given your independence in all of this, I would just value your thoughts around the Integrated Education Act and the obstacle to collaborative working that it may create in the future.
I would also appreciate it if you talked to us a little bit around parental choice, and the importance of allowing parents to choose on their religious beliefs. In Northern Ireland, we are still in a society where people will want to choose controlled, maintained or integrated, and the Integrated Education Act distorts that.
I would also ask you to just touch on the reports on the cost of divisions. We have heard from one of the panel members around choice and the rationalising of the estate. I am keen to understand whether you feel that rationalising the estate under the banner of integrated education would be very cost-beneficial to Northern Ireland. Then, just around the Integrated Education Act, would it have a direct or indirect impact on parental choice going forward?
Chair: We really have not got time to do anything more.
Dr Bloomer: I will try to deal with all of that as quickly as I can. First of all, the controlled sector is deeply concerned about the way in which it is seen and the fact that it considers the maintained sector to be better supported. The outcomes in the two sectors’ schools support that point of view. There is an indication that the controlled sector is less well supported.
There is a serious problem in the recent Integrated Education Act in that it places new obligations on the Education Authority and the Department of Education that are nearly incompatible with these two organisations fairly dealing with all the sectors for which they are responsible.
The solution we have put forward to this, which is only partly based on the things I have just said, is partly a consequence of the fact that we think that the Education Authority is a seriously flawed organisation. The people who have recently been in charge of it have done their best to improve it. The problems for the Education Authority lie in the nature of its origins back in 2014.
We have suggested that there is a need to divide the Education Authority into two quite separate parts: one responsible for management and the other responsible for the delivery of services to schools. That second part has to have a customer focus and ethos, which at the present moment it does not have.
That reorganisation would allow the opportunity to create—this would not, in the first instance, need legislation—an administrative division within the Education Authority with specific responsibility for the controlled sector. That would improve the standing of the controlled sector and tackle some of the problems that you were alluding to there, but it also opens up an opportunity because the creation of an administrative section like that would mean that it could subsequently assume responsibility for the maintained sector as well, and for other sectors. In other words, it is a stepping stone in the direction of creating a much more integrated management structure for schools in Northern Ireland, which would be a thoroughly good thing to do.
You asked about cost effectiveness. We have estimated that the review of the school estate that we have proposed could save an enormous amount of money. We have put it at as much as £100 million a year if it was very thoroughly done. I doubt whether it can be done as thoroughly as that would imply, but it does hold out the prospect of very significant sums of money, such as £60 million or £70 million, being diverted from the upkeep of buildings that frankly are not needed into much more genuinely educational purposes. There is an element of cost effectiveness in this. There would be an improvement in the cost effectiveness of the whole system.
Finally, you made a point about parental choice and the kind of choices that people wish to make. In a democratic society, what is crucial is that people should have the right to make the choices that, as an individual, you might rather that they did not make. That is built into the system as it currently stands. There are a lot of people who wish to make choices for their schools’ education that, for example, colleagues in the integrated movement probably would think are the wrong choices to make, but that is fair enough. That is the nature of a democratic society.
Chair: Thank you very much. I am sorry. We do not have any further time. I have another panel.
Peter Osborne: That was a totally unfair reflection of what we said, Chair.
Chair: There has been a division of opinion. Absolutely, I hear what you say. You have very carefully and clearly outlined a position, and the Committee member is entitled to express her view. We know your views as witnesses. You would refute that.
Peter Osborne: Can I just take 20 seconds to repeat about the quality of education and the respect I have for the other sectors? What they do is incredibly good. I said that several times.
Chair: You have put it on the record, and I know that is Dr O’Neill’s view as well. I am very grateful to all colleagues. Time is always against us, and I am really grateful for the evidence you have all given today. If there are further points that we need to clarify with you, of course we will come back to you in writing as well. We can always do that as a Committee. Can I thank everybody from the first panel?