Report from Nicie Annual Seminar

REPORT FROM NICIE ANNUAL SEMINAR

“Shaping the Future through Education”

14. 11. 15

Conference Hall, Stranmillis University College

The theme for this year’s seminar was explored through inputs from four leaders in key sectors of our society. They were:

Peter Osborne, Chair of the Community Relations Council

Dr Ian Graham, Business and Industry Consultant

Dr David Russel, Deputy Director Human Rights Commission

Lisa Mc Elherron, Head of Public Affairs, NICVA

Dr Helen Mc Laughlin, NICIE vice chair and Chair of Policy and Planning Committee, set the context for discussion against the sombre backdrop of the previous night’s events in Paris and more local political and social challenges. Helen also noted, that the failure of any politicians to be present was both a matter of regret and a problem for NICIE to solve.

Peter Osborne opened discussion with an unequivocal condemnation of our current education system, stating, “Segregation in education is bankrupt, morally, socially, economically. It’s wrong and should end here…Getting rid of segregation in education is one of the most important systemic changes we need to make…”

Peter expanded on his theme with references to his personal experience and community background to underscore the importance of education in supporting social change through hope, aspiration and, opportunities to “meet the other”. He warned about the toxic impact of young people from working class backgrounds being told by peers or parents that education wasn’t working for them or their community and that even worse, the “others” were getting a better deal. This, he said, was “storing up social problems for the future”.

Peter moved on to explore the need for systemic reform in our education system from an economic point of view. He cited findings from The NI Audit Report of an excess of 71,000 surplus places; recent findings from the Ministerial advisory Group on Initial Teacher Education and a Deloitte review about the oversupply of newly qualified teachers. He made a robust call for fundamental change – indeed his analysis of ITE and oversupply of teachers was disputed during discussion. Peter concluded with the following three challenges to politicians:

“If Integrated Education is the optimum form of sharing, how do we ensure that current Shared Education initiatives provide real, meaningful engagement and do actually result in movement towards a more integrated system?”
“Many politicians privately support integrated education. When are they going to have the courage to voice this publically?”
“When will Area Planning plan for more integrated provision?”

For NICIE, he urged that the experience and expertise of the integrated movement as a whole be defended and used for the benefit of young people in shared education. “No one else has more experience than the integrated sector …and it is important for NICIE to be aware of how it is viewed and facilitated in both the policy context and implementation of shared education”.

Subsequent to Peter’s input the following issues were raised:

What can the IE movement do to break through the current plateau of only 7% of children attending integrated schools?
Sharing works when there is enough to go around – will sharing work when there isn’t extra funding?
Does IE need to review how it positions itself; the language it uses?
Are there risks to Article 64 in the current policy and proposed bill for shared education?
Trust and respectful dialogue is needed in discussions about ITE providers – there is an oversupply in most professions, not just in teaching

Peter Osborne concluded with the following remarks:

Everyone involved in IE should be supporting the strengthening of relevant legislation
The issue of having 4 separate ITE providers must be tackled in the programme for government
There is a perception that IE is hostile to shared education: it is better for IE to bring its expertise to improving Shared Education rather than to be perceived as being wholly critical

Dr Ian Graham’s presentation developed the seminar theme, using hard hitting data and analogies from business and economics. As Helen Mc Laughlin remarked in her conclusions, it was refreshing for NICIE and all educationalists to be challenged in such a manner. His power point presentation is available on the NICIE web site for reference; below is a summary flavour of his provocative insights:

Northern Ireland needs to stop believing its own hype i.e. we don’t have a “world class education system” and our economy is still reliant on 75% public sector activity
The figures simply “don’t stack up” and Westminster is not going to keep money coming
Do any of our politicians have any ideas that are based in reality? e.g. the issue of reducing corporation tax has been talked about since 2005 with still no action

Further to the above criticisms and, by implication, their application to educational change, Dr Graham posed specific questions for integrated schools.

How do/should they respond to?

Radical extremism, particularly in light of the Paris atrocities?
IT and ECO challenges?
The failure of the capitalist model?

He suggested further that education can learn from successful business principles and practices such as the need for schools to be:

Agile and adaptive
Innovative and inclusive
Current and relevant; and above all,
Committed to supporting their population throughout their lives.

The third speaker, Dr David Russell contextualised his presentation with a summary of the preceding inputs. To a great extent, previous speakers had addressed two fundamental questions about education, these being:

What is the purpose of education?
What are the most effective means of its delivery?

With regard to our current education system, Human Rights (HR) Law says little about question 2, and whilst parental choice continues to be key to policy and planning for schools, neither parental choice, nor the right to a particular education are absolute rights. Similarly, there is no right to either shared education or to integrated education. With regards to shared and integrated education, Dr Russell suggested it is instead more useful to look at what government has done to date and what government could do further, in order for it to fully comply with HR law.

As an opening, David made the point that the proposed legislation, which references only the minimum essential requirements for shared education, will be problematic from a HR perspective if these are not applied equally to all sections of society. Again from a HR perspective, the Bill could be considered to be weak. In giving “power” to The Department of Education, The Council for Catholic Maintained Schools, The Youth Council for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum Examinations and Assessment, the Bill enables these bodies so that they “may encourage, facilitate and promote shared education”. From a HR perspective, this prompts obvious questions such as, “What happens if a new Minister of Education or indeed any of these bodies choose not to exercise this power?”

A “duty”, on the other hand is more onerous, in that it infers actual requirements. Government’s severest critics may argue that the current duty regarding integrated education – which is stronger than a power – is being done badly. There is still yet, no body with statutory responsibility to plan for integrated schools, despite the eventual formation of the single Education Authority. Before Christmas last year, NICIE was threatened with a 15% budget cut despite its function in supporting DE to meet the statutory duty. If such recent history can be used to gauge longer term commitment and resources for shared education, then, one might argue that its outlook is bleak, once funding dries up. Comments from the floor echoed an underlying fear that current philanthropic funding for shared education, might turn out to deliver no more than another expensive, and short lived iteration of EMU.

On a pragmatic note, David proposed that we return to the high level purposes of integrated and, more latterly, shared education, both as a means of maximising common purpose and HR compliance. Integrated Education and Shared Education both want the promotion of tolerance, mutual understanding and respect. We seem to be agreed on the answer to the first question, “What is the purpose of education?” but in disagreement about the second, “What are the most effective means of its delivery?” One possibility for finding an answer to the second question is to continue to lobby government about failure to tackle segregation in education as highlighted in previous and recent work in relation to the UNCRC.

The fourth speaker, Lisa Mc Elherron provided a strong, child– focused presentation on the impact of cuts, economics etc. on quality of life and aspirations for children and young people. She presented uncomfortable facts about the out workings of poverty; the grim reality of low paid employment limiting the hopes and aspirations of many young people in being able to live independently or buy their own home. If it was needed, Lisa’s presentation underscored the importance of policy makers, all educational authorities and stakeholders to set ideology and loyalty to institutions aside, for the benefit of children and young people.

Despite current difficulties, she confronted us with surprising data about the high levels of trust and esteem in which the public continue to hold schools. This, she argued, was a massive opportunity to be seized – schools and teachers are still very much in a position to do good and make a difference to the quality of children and young people’s lives. Hence the need, she urged us, to believe that problems are not insurmountable. Her rallying extended further to her interesting observation that Integrated Education, seemed, “to be giving itself a hard time”. It was very important, she continued, to get reinvigorated by the energy and spirit of integrated school founders - Integrated Education is an historical and international example of a highly successful social movement. Lisa concurred with comments from the floor, that Integrated Education must not put itself, nor allow itself to be described as a sector – it is an important social movement. We should, Lisa concluded, “continue to poke holes in the dyke” and we will get more little springs and leaks of social and parental power to strengthen the movement.

As expected, there was lively discussion and insufficient time in which to explore it all fully. In the interests of future work, a list of issues for further comment is listed.

When births are registered, parental choice could be better captured by asking parents to indicate their preference for educational provision

Schools should be supported to deliver the ethos of shared and integrated education

Those schools who say they are already integrated need to prove that they are

Experiences of work outside IE suggest that there is still lack of understanding/mis information about integrated education, yet big employers and investors recognise the need for an integrated work force

More research is needed on why parents don’t send their kids to IE schools

If you want to tackle segregation, there will be other pressures on the system; less parental choice? This is regressive however and wouldn’t stack alongside HR

There are valuable Experiences and Learning from Educate Together in ROI that we could share more formally