Sir, – Roderick Downer ( January 21st) and Jeffrey Dudgeon (January 22nd) both call for an end to segregated education in Northern Ireland. They are surely right.
In the past I was somewhat sceptical of the transformative capacity of some integrated schools, being aware of the mixed research evidence concerning the state schools which had opted for integrated status when viability was in question.
However, some 15 years after the Belfast Agreement, with sectarian divisions, always present, so recently laid bare yet again, it is time to make a decisive move towards integrated education.
Sinn Féin has held the Education portfolio since devolution. Will the party show real leadership and commit itself unequivocally to creating a shared education system and take on the entrenched and conservative interests which sustain separation? Or, will the party be content to leave things be? And how stands the DUP given the First Minister’s recorded wish to see shared education? – Yours, etc,