TUESDAY 11th MARCH RELEASE: IMMEDIATE Shared or Segregated? O’Dowd needs to make up his mind Ulster Unionist Party education spokesman Danny Kinahan MLA has accused the Minister John O’Dowd of encouraging and facilitating segregation in education, in contradiction of Executive policy on shared education in Northern Ireland. Mr Kinahan said: “Any impartial observer looking at Ministerial announcements from the Department of Education in recent months must be completely confused and perplexed. On the one hand we have a Minister professing his support for shared education, and saying it is a priority for the Executive. Yet on the other hand he is enthusiastically approving proposals from the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) to amalgamate Catholic Maintained Primary schools, and Catholic Grammar and Secondary Schools- without any reference whatsoever to the local Integrated and state controlled sectors. These decisions are often accompanied by major public expenditure in terms of new school buildings. “Further doubt has been cast on the Minister’s commitment to Shared Education by the comments attributed to him when approving the amalgamation of St Michaels Grammar, St Marys High and St Pauls Junior High in Lurgan. The Minister stated “The time has come to take decisive action to end the outdated practice of selecting on the basis of ability… There is now real momentum gathering in favour of educating all children together”. Yet he seems completely unconcerned about selecting and segregating on the basis of religious denomination, and appears to have developed amnesia with regards to his recent rhetoric about shared education across the traditional divide. The schools up the road do not seem to exist after all. When added to the recent vote by both Sinn Fein and the DUP to abstain on a motion I brought to the Assembly on Shared Education, I can come to only one conclusion: An ideological decision has been made to attack and end academic selection above all else, and implicit protection has been given to segregated education in Northern Ireland. This is continuing, and in some areas entrenching division amongst our young people. The policy seems to be at the behest of a particular and powerful interest group, and will have negative long term educational and societal repercussions. So much for shared education; under this Minister, educational apartheid continues.” ENDS
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 17:04:04 +0000
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