08 December 2006
Northern Ireland's schools are to be encouraged to move towards cross-community co-operation under proposals from a government-commissioned review led by Sir George Bain.
Extra funding will go to schools that share resources and collaborate with others. 'There are too many schools with too few pupils,' Bain said.
Area-based planning will provide a co-ordinated approach to the problem of surplus school places. There are 54,000 extra places, which will rise to about 80,000 in a decade. The number arises, in part, from Northern Ireland's diversity of state-funded schools.
There are controlled schools (state schools, mostly attended by Protestants); Catholic schools (grant supported, with some Protestant pupils); Irish language schools; voluntary schools (grant supported, with mostly Protestant pupils); and integrated schools.
Bain rejected the option of converting state schools to integrated status, instead calling for all establishments to move towards integration.
Annual reports and inspection reports should assess their cross-community achievements.
In future, the minimum enrolments for a school to be classed as 'sustainable' will be raised significantly.
Bain suggested confederation, federation, co-location and shared campuses as options for getting the school sectors to work together.
But the report suggests that some closures are inevitable. In Northern Ireland, 440 schools do not have the required minimum numbers of pupils.
Bain said that the argument for rationalisation based on cross-community co-ordination was justified on the grounds of cost and efficiency and improving educational and social outcomes.
He added: 'We do not advocate one single approach to integration, rather a more pervasive and inclusive strategy.'
PFdec2006
