ONE sure conversation killer in respectable company is to question the oft stated claim that integrated education is the panacea for the Northern "Troubles". To suggest that it is unfair, disingenuous and, indeed, dangerous to place such worthy and lofty hopes on any system of education - never mind one which is still very much in the experimental phase, attracting less than 2 per cent of the North's school population despite much government support - is to invite vitriolic attack on one's character and motives.
I know. This is precisely what happened to me at a media discussion group in Queen's University a little over two years ago. The event in question was supposed to be an open and honest reflection on the Channel Four series Belfast Lessons, which gave the viewer some insight into young people's thoughts on the 1994 ceasefires. The school selected to represent the youth of Northern Ireland was Hazelwood College, an integrated school in north Belfast, an area which has suffered greatly during the conflict over the past decades.
Perhaps it was only my impression, but the audience seemed to be made up of people from the "leafy suburbs" and "chattering classes" of south Belfast and north Down, all of whom seemed to be prepared to put unrealistic expectations of solving the problems of centuries of conflict on the shoulders of normal young people who happened to be educated in a certain system.
The students were articulate, idealistic, friendly and, above all, normal. They were not, nor should they be forced to be, the solution to the "Troubles".
Yet everything was utilised to make this seem so. Peace lines, flags, graffiti, voice overs - even the President of Ireland herself, Mrs Robinson, appeared on the screen at Hazelwood, apparently endorsing the school's educational project. When I rather naively suggested that the presentation of integrated education was being hijacked to serve a political lobby, it was then that I felt the whole weight and disapproval of "liberal" society falling upon me.
AND herein lies the problem. Quite simply, if one expresses disquiet about the current agenda being advanced in education (and not just in the North), then one is disqualified from holding a valid opinion on the grounds of being narrow minded, bigoted and wishing to condemn Ireland to more decades of violence and religious intolerance.
Tolerance and openness, it seems, are the sole preserve of the integrated/non denominational sector. The (not always) unspoken corollary is that specifically denominational education - especially Catholic education - is in some way inferior, beal bocht, divisive and outdated.
It could be argued, however, that this analysis by supporters of non denominational education is based on at least challengeable premises. Dr Tony Gallagher, from Queen's University, argues that the position outlined above is based on "simplistic translation of the desegregation experience of the United States" during the 1960s. Where the parallel breaks down is that the goal of desegregation in education in the US was to give blacks equality in education, whereas the drive towards an integrated system of education in Northern Ireland follows a much wider political agenda.
The treatment of the Catholic education sector, as it strove to maintain its independence, has been nothing short of scandalous. Continual hardships and obstacles were put in its way throughout Ireland before partition and in Northern Ireland since.
Catholics had to fund a considerable proportion of building and other capital costs: first 50 per cent, then 35 per cent and, until recently, 15 per cent. This levy fell on that section of the community which was at an economic disadvantage relative to its Protestant counterpart. Indeed, it was only in 1994 that the Catholic sector received full capital funding.
Many of the structural injustices and anomalies which triggered the removal of the funding restrictions were exposed in a series of studies carried out on behalf of the Standing Advisory Committee on Human Rights (SACHR) between 1988 and 1993. In addition to the capital funding discrepancy, the studies revealed that Catholic schools received considerably smaller (up to 20 per cent less) per capita funding for non teaching recurrent costs - i.e. funding which directly affects teaching - and that Catholic students have fewer opportunities for grammar school places within the Catholic system.
STUDIES also revealed that in terms of teaching space for science - crucial for preparing young people for the technological job market - Catholic schools are still considerably disadvantaged. According to the best estimates, the Catholic sector has been underfunded by as much as £70 million. And despite 20 years of fair employment legislation, Catholics are still more than twice as likely than others to be unemployed.
Rather than portraying the Catholic education system in the North as one of the major bastions of intolerance and integrated education as a solution to the conflict, academics and media alike might do better to examine the wider issues and implications involved in the education debate.
Catholics are still excluded from positions of influence in a state which was and, some would argue, still is a Protestant state for a Protestant people (and one may feel that, after the events at Drumcree and Harryville, little has changed). Given this, it should not be surprising that the Catholic community would be reluctant to give up control of the sole institution which it controls - the only institution which affords its children access to such things as employment and empowerment.
Given that 94 per cent of Catholic parents freely choose to send their children to schools in this system, perhaps more credit and serious attention ought to be given to the issues of justice and parity of esteem in education.
