Education, Equality and the Economy by Tony Gallagher

SHAPING A BETTER WORLD SINCE 1845 EDUCATION, EQUALITY AND THE ECONOMY BY TONY GALLAGHER Education pivotal cover.indd 1 27/09/2019 17:34 1 EDUCATION, EQUALITY AND THE ECONOMY Tony Gallagher Introduction Education in Northern Ireland has a curious history. It is often said, of such a small place, that if you can think of some way of dividing kids, then that’s exactly what we have done. The Churches have played a major role in education since the establishment of the Irish National School system in the 1830s and they successfully altered reform proposals presented by the first Minister of Education in the newly partitioned Northern Ireland in 1923. We retained single-sex schools longer than most parts of the UK and, unlike most parts of Europe, we have retained separate grammar and secondary schools. The ‘Troubles’ and Peace Process tested the social role of our schools and we have seen the creation of new sectors of religiously Integrated schools and Irish medium schools. More recently there has been a rise in ‘newcomer’ children in our schools, that is children for whom English or Irish are not their first languages. The second half of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the 21st have seen three broad generational groups in Northern Ireland: the ‘baby boomers’, the ‘children of the Troubles’ and the ‘ceasefire babies’. The first of these lived through a time of growing optimism, the second through a time of turmoil and the third through a time of hope. These years also experienced an educational revolution, the driving heart of which lay outside Northern Ireland. The early phase of this revolution saw the development of free, mass post-primary education, but by century’s end we were moving towards mass higher education. The nature of the economy and jobs dramatically changed, with the transfer of large parts of manufacturing to other parts of the globe, and the rise of the service sector. The political world also saw radical change, most notably with the collapse of European communism and the end of the Cold War. And the exponential growth of the digital economy created new opportunities and challenges for society as a whole, and education in particular. For schools in Northern Ireland there was, and is, an added challenge. Lyra McKee was a young journalist who was murdered in April 2019 during rioting in the Creggan area of Derry/Londonderry. Among her writing was a notable article entitled ‘Suicide of the Ceasefire Babies’, an article on teenage suicides linked to the conflict. After her death many commentated on the ‘ceasefire generation’ and wondered at how Lyra had managed to transcend so many of the traditional identities in Northern Ireland. She had been murdered by people associated with dissident Republic groups and it is sanguinary to note that the ‘ceasefire generation’ also contains young people who appear to have been convinced by the rhetoric of traditional advocates of violence as a political weapon. Schools and the wider education system in Northern Ireland face challenges similar to those found in most Western countries: they are meant to provide young people with the qualifications and skills that will give them opportunities for mobility; they are meant to contribute to the human capital of society and economic growth; they are meant to encourage the art of appreciating life, in its fullest sense; and in Northern Ireland they are meant to prepare young people to live and work in a society that has been characterized by division and violent conflict, in that they should provide young people with the skills and 2 tools that will help them, not only navigate our divided society, but contribute towards making a shared and better society. These multiple purposes for education are interdependent, not independent. A society that cannot deal with the legacies of a difficult past, or help its citizens engage successfully with difference, is not one which will encourage a settled, democratic society and develop a sustainable, thriving economy in which all its citizens will benefit. A singular focus on a narrow set of economic priorities will fail to capture the wider set of social values and priorities necessary for a successful society, one in which a sense of the common good prevails. In this paper my aim is to explore some of the patterns and trends in education in Northern Ireland, at all levels. In many ways the period of the peace process as a notional turning point. The last generation to complete their education under a system run by a locally elected Minister was born in the 1950s, so what has changed in our education system in the aftermath of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement? To what extent has devolution and local control of education had an impact on education and educational outcomes? And has our education system managed to find ways to address the social challenges and possibilities that emerged in the context of the peace process? Has our education system provided the generation of the ‘ceasefire babies’ with better options and possibilities than the generations which preceded them? In the course of the paper we will examine patterns and trends in our schools and colleges, then focus on the outcomes of education. We will examine some case studies of strategic issues addressed by our local politicians and ask whether the shared political arrangements have lived up to their promise of providing a means for encouraging good governance in a divided society. And we will ask what all of this might mean for social policy in Northern Ireland generally, and education policy more specifically. Education in Northern Ireland The educational system in Northern Ireland is very similar to that in most OECD countries, with perhaps the three main differences lying in the relatively young age at which compulsory education starts, the continuation of a selective system of post-primary education and the significant role of the Churches in education governance. The compulsory period of education lasts from Year 1 to 12, aged 4 years to 16 years, at which point the pupils take their first public examinations (GCSEs). Those who stay in education will spend the next two years taking GCE A Level courses, or vocational courses, in school or further education college. Post-18 years pupils will enter higher education, further education or the labour market. 3 Figure 1: The education system in Northern Ireland Primary Post 16 yrs •Nursery school •Secondary •Higher education •Reception/nursery •Primary •Grammar •Grammar •Further education class •Years 1-7 •Year 8-12 •Secondary •Employment •Further Education •Training Pre-school Post primary Post 18 yrs The role of the Churches remains strong in school level education, as does the level of religious separation, even though, unlike England, few schools operate formal religious tests for admissions. As Figures 2(a) to 2(d) show this is true across primary and post-primary sectors. Figure 2 (a): Number of Catholic pupils by primary school type Integrated 4,003 Maintained 82,152 Controlled 7,151 4 Figure 2(b) Number of Protestant/Other pupils by primary school type Integrated 7,114 Maintained 5,106 Controlled 78,724 Figure 2(c) Number of Catholic pupils by post-primary school type Controlled/ Voluntary 5,325 Integrated 4,330 Maintained/ Voluntary 63,607 5 Figure 2(d): Number of Protestant/Other pupils by post-primary school type Controlled/ Voluntary 57,606 Integrated 8,177 Maintained/ Voluntary 3,211 Between 2009/10 and 2017/18 the number of enrolments in Further Education fell from a little under 200k to just over 155k and the proportion of boys outstripped that of girls. The majority of further education students were under-taking part-time study. About one-in-four of enrolments were on further education courses, about one-in-six on essential skills courses and a little under one-in ten on higher education courses. Students in Further Education had a broadly balanced social distribution, with about one-in-five in the most socially disadvantaged quintile, and about one-in-seven in the least disadvantaged quintile. The sources for students in Higher Education are a little more complex: most local students attend one of the three local universities or two university colleges, though the Open University only enrolls part-time students, but many can and do choose to go to university outside Northern Ireland. The local universities attract a number of European Union students, though mainly from the Republic of Ireland, and they are subject to the same fees arrangements as local NI students. The universities also attract some students from GB, though they receive no public funding for these students and can charge higher fees. Finally, the universities can attract international students for whom the fees charged are determined by competitive and market factors. Figure 3 shows some of the consequences of this: higher education funding and fee systems vary across the UK and since the NI universities attract some public funding the numbers of local and EU students they can enroll are capped. Funding cuts over recent years have seen this number reduced and the local institutions have tried to mitigate some of the effects of this through recruitment of GB and international students. The proportion of NI students who opted to go to university in GB went up significantly during the Troubles, declined again in the early years of the Peace Process and has started to increase again in recent years: in 2008/09 31% of NI domiciled students in UK universities were outside NI, but by 2017/19 this had increased to 33%. 6 The social profile of Higher Education students in NI was somewhat less balanced than that for Further Education students: one-in-eight HE students in NI were in the most disadvantaged quintile, while one-in- four were in the least disadvantaged quintile.

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