Northern Ireland shared education: Minister outlines plans

Mr O'Dowd's shared education policy aims to enable more children and young people from different community backgrounds to be educated together

Education Minister John O'Dowd has said he wants "all children and young people" in Northern Ireland to be involved in shared education projects.

He has published his policy on shared education.

Its aim is to enable more children and young people from different community backgrounds to be educated together.

Shared education can include sharing campuses like Lisanelly in Omagh, as well as pupils in separate schools engaging in joint classes.

Teachers and school governors from different schools can also work together to share good practice.

The policy says that "all children and young people should have the opportunity to be involved in shared education".

As part of the drive to achieve this, a Shared Education Bill will be introduced to the assembly, although this has been delayed due to the failure of the executive to meet recently.

Schools will also be required to outline their plans for engaging in shared education, while teachers in training will be given the opportunity to learn together.

Extra funding of £25m over four years has previously been made available to schools engaging in shared education projects.

The executive's 'Together, Building a United Community Strategy' also included a target to commence 10 new shared education campuses in the next five years.

Most children in Northern Ireland - around 92% - are educated at schools mainly attended by either Protestant or Roman Catholic pupils.

Good relations

However, many schools have pupils from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds.

The minister says that shared education helps to raise educational standards and reduce underachievement; makes better use of resources, and builds good relations among young people.

Work is under way to build the campus at Lisanelly in Omagh

Shared education is not the same as integrated education, where schools enrol similar numbers of Catholic and Protestant children as well as pupils from other religious and cultural backgrounds

Integrated schools aim to enrol at least 30% of their pupils from the minority community in their catchment area, although can start with as little as 10% of pupils from that community.

A number of organisations consulted about the shared education policy expressed the view that integrated education was preferable to shared education.

However, the Department of Education said that integrated schools would benefit from taking part in shared education projects.