Education Minister Michelle McIlveen unevils £800m funding for 28 schools’ capital projects across Northern Ireland

The minister told the assembly today that the schools will benefit from an estimated capital investment of £794m under the Major Capital Works Programme, aiming to benefit over 25,000 pupils.

“I have visited many schools and witnessed first-hand not only the tremendous work that takes place in each and every school, but also the need for an appropriate level of investment in the fabric of our schools, whether this is a new building, the extension and refurbishment of existing school buildings, or through a programme of smaller scale minor capital works,” she said.

“Such investment is essential to provide the first class educational experience our pupils, staff and wider school communities both deserve and need to ensure our young people can achieve their full potential.”

Through her announcement, she said she hopes to bring “some much needed good news not just to schools and their wider school communities, but also the contractors and professionals in the construction industry and indeed the wider economy”.

The call for projects opened on 23 December 2021 and closed on 14 January 2022, with 34 school nominations received. Twenty eight schools passed the Gateway Stage and were progressed to the scoring stage and were ranked in merit order.

Deliverability of the 28 projects will be subject to the level of resources towards the end of this decade and into the start of the next.

The 28 schools, in no priority order, are;-

Ballyclare High School; Ballyclare Secondary School; Ballymena Academy; Belfast High School; Cambridge House, Ballymena; Carrickfergus Academy; Dean Maguirc College, Omagh; Dromore High School; Edmund Rice College, Newtownabbey; Friends’ School Lisburn; Hunterhouse College, Belfast; Killicomaine Junior High School; Larne Grammar; Larne High School; Lisnagarvey High School, Lisburn;

Loreto College, Coleraine; Lumen Christi College, Londonderry; Malone Integrated College, Belfast; Mercy College, Belfast; Portadown College; Sperrin Integrated College, Magherafelt; St Brigid’s College, Londonderry;

St Catherine’s College, Armagh; St Ciaran’s College, Dungannon; St Joseph’s College, Belfast; St Louise’s Comprehensive College, Belfast; St Paul’s High School, Newry; St Pius X College, Magherafelt.

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