Letter: DUP must take up its responsibility for developing and encouraging integrated schools
A letter from Cecil Linehan:
Last week’s comment from the DUP stating that not all parents wish to choose integrated schools for their children shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the government’s responsibility in this whole area.
The current legislation in education in NI states quite clearly in Article 64 (1) that: ‘It shall be the duty of the Department of Education to encourage and facilitate the education together of Catholic and Protestant children in school’.
So an MLA cannot make a statement such as they did without informing the population of what consultation they engaged in to back up this statement.
The minister rejected applications from two Bangor schools which wished to transfer to integrated school status despite over 80% of parents having voted for this change in 2025. The minister’s reason was based on the small numbers of Catholic pupils in these schools.
It is difficult to see how Mr Givan was taking on his responsibility to ‘encourage and facilitate the development of integrated schools’ as demanded by the existing legislation.
Moving a school to integrated status is but the start of a journey for an existing school. How does Mr Givan think Lagan College’s first year intake of 28 pupils grew yearly from 28 to 56 and then to over 120 so that the school outgrew rapidly its existing site and temporary buildings?
The simple answer is: it was there and other parents could see it as a template for what they wanted for their children. And guess what? The number of integrated schools grew.
A small number of a minority in an integrated school will grow as parents and pupils gradually appreciate how valued their children are as part of that integrated school community.
In other words, there is a cascade effect which flows from a true welcome of diversity.
I call on Mr Givan and his colleagues in the DUP to take up their responsibility for developing and encouraging integrated schools and to stop killing little acorns of hope developing into beacons of reconciliation in our still sadly divided community.
Cecil Linehan, Co-founder in 1972 of All Children Together - the Founding Movement for the development of integrated schools by consent