New Shared School Campus Model in Omagh: A Failure to Integrate?

[factual]

The below interesting story details a new shared campus in the six counties:

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School campus plan a model for N Ireland

By Jamie Smyth in Omagh



Bringing down walls: graffiti in a republican district of Belfast in the 1980s. A report estimates the cost of sectarianism and division in Northern Ireland at a staggering £1.5bn a year


It was once home to thousands of British soldiers, but Lisanelly army barracks in Northern Ireland could soon become the first “shared education campus” serving both Catholic and Protestant children.

As peace beds down in Northern Ireland, the plan for the site of the abandoned barracks in Omagh is being promoted as a model for how the region can reduce duplication and sectarian division in its education system.


Under a plan proposed by the local education board, six secondary schools would be built next to each other on the 140-acre site, accommodating 3,700 pupils and providing schooling to almost all of Omagh’s children. By colocating on a single site, each school would share sports, administration and some teaching facilities while retaining their own religious identity, and even school uniforms.

The cost of the project is £100m but the board says this would be cheaper than rebuilding existing schools in Omagh, many of which are in dire condition. Faced with severe cutbacks to the education budget and the need to close or merge hundreds of schools, the project’s backers believe Lisanelly-style campuses could be replicated in other areas.

“There is no doubt about it: this model of schooling provides significant cost savings,” said Hazel Jones, programme director at the Lisanelly shared educational campus project. “It would also help build community relations between Catholic and Protestant towards a shared future.”

Northern Irish schooling remains deeply divided with 90 per cent of primary and secondary school pupils attending either Protestant or Catholic schools. Segregation means most young people do not regularly meet members of the other community before university or entering the workforce, hindering efforts to break down prejudice.



A Northern Ireland executive report published in 2007 estimated more collaboration in schooling, including the use of shared campuses, could save up to £80m a year. It put the overall cost of sectarianism and division in Northern Ireland at a staggering £1.5bn a year because of additional security costs and duplication in the provision of health, education and other public services.

John O’Dowd, Northern Ireland’s education minister, supports the Lisanelly project and will shortly set up an advisory group to say how to develop a shared education model. But he said parental choice remained the cornerstone of the school system. In a community where areas are either dominated by Protestants or Catholics, parents tended to send their children to local schools, he added.

This probably explains the limited success of the integrated education movement in Northern Ireland, which began in 1981 with the establishment of the first integrated school in Belfast, Lagan College. Thirty years later there are just 61 integrated primary and secondary schools out of a total of 1,219, despite opinion polls showing most people think integrated education is important for reconciliation efforts.

“Segregated schooling is deeply entrenched due to our history and the legacy of division. The Catholic Church’s control over education has been a big factor in reinforcing the Catholic Irish identity in Northern Ireland,” said Noreen Campbell, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education.

At the Sacred Heart College, a Catholic secondary school in Omagh that badly needs a new building, there is strong support for the shared campus because each school will be able to retain its ethos while benefiting from facilities it could not afford on its own.

“The co-location model is a neighbourhood approach, which better reflects the community. Integrated education, when it was first mooted as an idea, had an element of enforced integration,” said Harry Mullan, chairman of the board of governors.

But challenges remain. One of the six schools expected to join the Lisanelly campus mounted a legal challenge against the Department of Education over its failure to provide a new school building on its existing site. Loreto Grammar lost an appeal last week and has not indicated whether it is now willing to move to the Lisanelly site.
Local consultations are continuing and a final decision from the department on whether to proceed with the campus is expected this year.
Outside the community centre in Omagh where the Lisanelly plan is on public display, just metres from the location of a Real IRA bomb in August 1998 that killed 29 people, most local people seemed hopeful the plan would progress.
Hayley Booth, a 17-year-old student at Omagh Academy, one of the schools that expects to move to the campus, is in favour since it will mean more choice on subjects to study. She added: “I think it may also help to solve problems because there won’t be divisions.”

Comment: It seems this reduces costs by sharing facilities, while retaining religious segregation. The two religious communities would continue to be in separate rooms, while sharing them only at diffferent points in time. It makes me question whether it would really lead to much integration or conversations and friendships between catholics and protestants at all?

[Mr. Garlic]

Have you ever thought about minding your own business a bit, factual? While you're at it you might concentrate in your own country's affairs (you Irish have enough to be worried about, frankly) instead of sticking your nose into the business of the residents of an entirely separate sovereign state.

[PaddyO'Neill]

That's a very negative view on the story. You could look on it as a step forward.

[PaddyO'Neill]

Have you ever thought about minding your own business a bit, factual? While you're at it you might concentrate in your own country's affairs (you Irish have enough to be worried about, frankly) instead of sticking your nose into the business of the residents of an entirely separate sovereign state.

He has as much right to comment on this as you or me.

[factual]

That's a very negative view on the story. You could look on it as a step forward.

It feels like a missed opportunity to do something more integrative.

[PaddyO'Neill]

It feels like a missed opportunity to do something more integrative.

Such as?

[factual]

Such as?

A school where children of different religious communities are in the same room at the same time.

[Ren84]

Have you ever thought about minding your own business a bit, factual? While you're at it you might concentrate in your own country's affairs (you Irish have enough to be worried about, frankly) instead of sticking your nose into the business of the residents of an entirely separate sovereign state.

An Irish person has every right to comment on stories from another part of Ireland, whether it be Omagh, Belfast or Cork. Just as you, an Irishman, has every right to have an opinion and comment on affairs concerning Cork, Dublin or Galway.

[PaddyO'Neill]

A school where children of different religious communities are in the same room at the same time.

So you would like to get rid of the Catholic influence in education? In the south as well? Britain?

[factual]

So you would like to get rid of the Catholic influence in education? In the south as well? Britain?

There could still be a Catholic influence, just not across the whole school.

Another option would be (a compromise) to have complete integration for 14-18 year olds , and have Catholic schools for 11-14 then mixed schools for 14-18. Something like that would seem better.

So that the two religious communities get more chance to meet and get to know each other !