The integrated education movement in the North has strongly criticised a British government disclosure that the Northern Ireland Office had saved nearly £1.3 million by not funding three new integrated schools.
In the House of Commons last week the Liberal Democrat spokesman on Northern Ireland, Mr Lembit Opik, asked the Northern Ireland Secretary how much money had been saved by the decision not to fund Oakwood integrated primary school near Dunmurry, Co Antrim, and two integrated secondary schools, Ulidia College near Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, and Strangford College, near Newtownards, Co Down.
The response, by the North's Education Minister, Mr John McFall, was: "Based on an average per capita allocation, it is estimated that their budgets would have totalled about £1,270,000 had they been grant-aided since they opened."
Oakwood, which now has 89 Protestant and Catholic pupils, and nearly 40 more down for next year, opened in September 1996. Ulidia, with 127 students and over 110 more down for next year, and Strangford, with 144 students and over 220 applicants for next year, opened in September 1997. Mr Opik said it was "disappointing that parents who try to provide a non-segregated schooling option for their children have the public funding allocation for them withheld. Surely this cannot be the Department of Education tasked with improving community relations in Northern Ireland? Surely this cannot be the department bound by the 1989 Education Reform Order to "encourage and facilitate the development of integrated education"?
"This is heartbreaking," said Mr Tom Pennycook, chairperson of the board of governors of Ulidia College. "If we had sent our children to three segregated schools, then the Government would have paid £1,270,000 for them to be educated. But because we parents are thinking of the future of Northern Ireland and have opened this school with a pluralist ethos, the government keeps that money and will not allow it to be used at all.
"So we have the back-breaking and frustrating job of finding half-a-million pounds each year and running our school - while the government doesn't even give us the money it was prepared to pay for our children to get a segregated education."
Mr Michael Wardlow, chief executive of the North's Council for Integrated Education, said: "Despite the delay in recognition by the Department of Education, local parents have voted with their feet and the three school rolls are growing each year. Last summer's tragic events show just how much work we as a community have to do in terms of building trust, confidence, reconciliation, dialogue and co-operation. It is the courageous and determined parents, pupils and staff of the Oakwood, Ulidia and Strangford schools who are leading Northern Ireland to the better future we all want for our children."