Press Release
Immediate use10 June 2016
IEF welcomes UN call for integrated education system in Northern Ireland
The Integrated Education Fund (IEF) welcomes the recommendation by The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) that Northern Ireland develop an integrated education system.
The UNCRC, in its periodic review of the UK’s adherence to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, expressed concern that “in Northern Ireland segregation of schools by religion persists” and goes on to recommend “the State party… in Northern Ireland actively promote a fully integrated education system and carefully monitor the provision of shared education, with the participation of children, in order to ensure that it facilitates social integration.” (observations 71 and 72, Committee on the Rights of the Child: Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[*])
Commenting on the Committee’s observations, published this week, Tina Merron the CEO of the IEF said
“This is a very welcome endorsement of the aims of the integrated education movement and represents recognition at the highest level that young people in Northern Ireland are largely growing up in a context of division and separation according to religious tradition. I am very pleased to see such a clear expression of support for education reform and would hope that it now becomes central in the new Executive mandate. I would echo the call for shared education to focus on social integration – shared education activity must be a planned and considered step on the way to the fully integrated education system envisaged by the United Nations committee.”
The full report from the UNCRC makes 90 observations or recommendations and the concluding recommendation is that ... “the State party take all appropriate measures to ensure that the recommendations contained in the present concluding observations are fully implemented”.
Note for editors:
The IEF is the charity (registered as NIC104886) which provides financial support for the development and growth of integrated education. Our aim is to enable children to learn together in an environment that celebrates religious and cultural diversity, making integration, not separation, the norm in the Northern Ireland education system. On the basis of parental demand we continue to support the establishment of more integrated school places, the transformation of existing non-integrated schools to integrated status and cross-community school initiatives that provide meaningful interaction between pupils, parents, staff and the wider community.
Contact details:
Maddy Bridgman, Press Officer: 028 9069 4099/ 078 4192 7724/
[*]*Adopted by the Committee at its seventy-second session (17 May -3 June 2016).