Model school gets no funding
Henry McDonald
Sunday September 25, 2005
Observer
Parents and staff at Lir Integrated Primary School believe they are practising what the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality preached the need for last week - religious and racial integration throughout the United Kingdom.
But despite successfully bringing together 26 children from Roman Catholic, Protestant and non-Christian denominations on Northern Ireland's Atlantic coast, Lir hasn't to date received a single penny of public money.
Built under the shadow of the Glens of Antrim, in sight of Fair Head and Rathlin Island, the integrated primary has survived its first year, thanks to the charity of two American dotcom billionaires, as well as financial support from rich backers in Australia.
As teachers prepared to apply once more for public funding this term, the school's principal, Sharon Lyons, pointed to Sir Trevor Phillips's speech in Manchester on Thursday night during which he denounced racial and religious segregation.
'Sir Trevor only has to come to Northern Ireland to see the effects of segregated schools and housing,' Lyons said.
'It's ironic that he issues a warning about growing segregation in Britain while a school like Lir is bringing children from different backgrounds together but gets no money from the public purse.'
Although there are now 17,000 children being taught in the integrated schools sector, this figure still only comprises around 5.5 per cent of the entire school population of Northern Ireland. Last year the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education had to turn away 700 children because of a lack of places in its 58 schools.
Campaigners for integrated education in Northern Ireland claim there is a vital need to teach children from all religious backgrounds together at an early stage in their lives. They point to a 2002 study 'Too Young To Notice? The cultural and political awareness of three- to six-year-olds in Northern Ireland' which found that, by the time they are six, 15 per cent of children express sectarian statements.
Sharon Lyons said they established Lir against all odds, and even managed to maintain a 50/50 Catholic-Protestant split, after the Department of Education in Northern Ireland told them that this ratio was impossible to achieve in mainly Catholic Ballycastle.
'The right to integrated education is enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement. Our school is an option that should be made available to parents and their children. The decision to deny Lir funding flies in the face of the government's own "Shared Future" policy they launched earlier this year.'
Campaigners for the school add that the sectarian violence across North Antrim this summer, during which schools, churches and homes were attacked, underlined the need for more integrated schools in the area. Several parents with children at Lir are from religiously mixed marriages or come from abroad, like Boston-born Kelly Matthews, whose son Rory started school this month.
'Lir being established in Ballycastle was one of the main reasons I decided to settle here. One of the first pieces of research I did when my husband and I planned to move back to Northern Ireland was to write "Integrated Schools, North Antrim" into Google. It was the presence of Lir primary that helped make up our minds to come here.'
Jackie Rodgers, a Protestant with a Catholic husband, said Lir's establishment had been a dream come true.
'It was very important for us that our son Cory would not be labelled by which school he attended. It was always my wish that by the time he was ready to start school there would be an integrated school in Ballycastle because we wanted to ensure Cory would be mixing with children from all sides of the community.'
The Department of Education in Northern Ireland has insisted that it would be 'unreasonable public expenditure' to fund a fourth school in the Ballycastle area given that there is a state primary, a Catholic-run school and an Irish-language medium school in the town. It is the first time that the department has used the public expenditure criteria to deny an integrated school funding.
In the absence of public funding, Lir has received around £200,000 per annum from American entrepreneurs Jack and Jackie McDonnell and the Sir Warwick Fairfax Trust in Australia.
Julie Kane is chairperson of the board of governors with a daughter, Emma, at the school. She said the Lir parents and teachers would not give up fighting for public funding.
'We won't stop believing. It is our right to have this school funded just as it said so in the Agreement,' she added.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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