Vol. 120 No. 15
I received notice from Senator Murphy that he proposes to raise the following matter on the Adjournment of the House:
The need for the Minister for Foreign Affairs to clarify the Government's attitude to the Mawhinney proposals on integrated education in Northern Ireland.
The Senator has 20 minutes to make his case.
The proper title of the Mawhinney document is "Education in Northern Ireland — Proposals for Reform" and it was published by the Northern Ireland Department of Education in March. It is a Green Paper effectively, a discussion paper for various reform proposals in the Northern Ireland education system, and indeed it forms part of the Education Reform Bill in the United Kingdom as a whole — certainly in England and Wales. The Northern Ireland section contains certain different distinct proposals geared to the situation in Northern Ireland. As I understand it, the discussion was to have terminated by 10 June at which stage the British Government would take up as it were the various suggestions made on the basis of the Green Paper.
To the extent that it proposes curricular reform in the system, it really is not directly any business of ours. I pause here to note that some of the proposals are excessively utilitarian in tone. Like so much of educational obsession today, the Green Paper is somewhat over-concerned in my view with science and technology to the detriment of the humanities but that is really neither here nor there.
However, other proposals in the document do bear directly on our business and relate to the business of the Inter-governmental Conference. Ultimately, they bear on the prospects for peace and reconciliation between the communities in Northern Ireland and, therefore, in Ireland as a whole. The Green Paper — if I may call it that — puts forward as an objective, and I quote from page 6 of the document:
To act positively to facilitate the development of integrated education where there is sufficient parental demand to support a viable school.
In part at least the objective of the Mawhinney proposals is to promote the principle and practice of integrated education. To that extent the document spells out in detail further on the ways in which parents may be mobilised to change the nature of a school, whereby a school may change its standing from a voluntary school to a grant maintained school. Indeed there is a further category savoured by the British Government, a grant maintained integrated school, which is given special incentives in the context, once again, of furthering educational integration in Northern Ireland.
The document also — and this is very interesting — emphasises parental choice, parental control and parental power. It envisages a situation where a school may move to a grant maintained integrated status if, for example, 20 per cent of the parents in any school look for a referendum of the total number of parents. Then a simple majority of the parental body could transform the status of the school. Here is a real formula for real parental democracy, not just paying lip-service to it as is the case sometimes in our own Constitution, for example, where an ecclesiastical body has the real power but only pays lip-service to parental democracy. I think the real objection of the Northern Ireland Catholic bishops to this proposal is precisely this point, that this is power to the parents, power to the parents, away from the Episcopal trustees.
None of us in this Chamber is so naive as to think that integrated education is the panacea for the social and political ills of Northern Ireland. None of us believes that if you assemble Protestants and Catholics and mix them up in the schools tomorrow, within a short period you will have community harmony. Of course not. Let us not be put in the false position, by those who favour segregation, of having to defend the impossible. Of course not but at the same time this is a taboo subject, be it noted. It is quite extraordinary that in the civil rights movement of 20 years ago and in the Forum for a New Ireland some years back, virtually little or nothing was said about education as if somehow there was a conspiracy that this was a preserved area not to be discussed — a thunderous silence one might call it. In effect, we have to face up to the fact that segregated education may well be only a symptom of division. It may not be anything like a contributory cause of division but at the same time commonsense would dictate to us that if you have only 800 pupils in integrated schools out of a total pupil body of 340,000 that cannot be satisfactory.
At the back of all of this of course is the fact that the Catholic Church throughout the 19th and 20th centuries has consistently pursued the aim of control of schools. In a forgotten chapter of Irish history in 1919-20, one of the reasons the Catholic bishops supported the transfer of power from the Parliamentary Party to Sinn Féin was that the Sinn Féin organisation were willing to toe the Episcopal line on educational policy. It has not changed from the time 120 years ago when Cardinal Cullen said "There is nothing that so concerns us as education, nothing that is so much our business"— meaning Catholic business. The position has not changed today where Bishop Cathal Daly, for all his impassioned and no doubt sincere protestations of peace and reconciliation at the New Ireland Forum, refuses to appoint a chaplain to Lagan College which recently was rightly described as the flagship of integrated education. Fr. Denis Faul, an honest man indeed, said in his honesty, quite recently, "we will give up our Churches before we give up our schools." We know, then, where the Catholic Church stands on this matter.
Let it be said, that the Protestants have a similar attitude, that they have no enthusiasm for integrated education and that the Stormont Government from its inception down to its abolition also tacitly or otherwise favoured what I might call educational apartheid. I have very grave doubts about what is meant by the Catholic ethos or the Protestant ethos. When you strip it down it simply means each tribe controls its own schools. A poll in Fortnight magazine however shows a different picture. In the July-August 1988 issue of Fortnight, there is a detailed poll which shows that there is substantial parental support for the idea that Government should promote integrated schools.
We have heard over the past few months objections to the Mawhinney proposals. Some of the objections are reasonable indeed, for example, that the Irish language may well be downgraded if they are implemented. I certainly would hope that our Government in the Inter-governmental Conference and elsewhere will continue the difficult but essential task of educating British governors in the importance of the Irish language as an integral part of Ulster cultural heritage and the need moreover not to let the language go by default to the Provos. One of the most basic requirements of our time is that the Irish language must not become the bloodstained cultural uniform of the IRA. Let our Government plead that cause but our Government's stance, as reported in the newspapers, makes me uneasy in other regards, and this is why I brought this matter up tonight.
Do the Government oppose the essential thrust of these proposals which is towards encouraging integrated education? Do the Government really believe the line that these proposals should not be accepted in case the Provisionals take over some schools, in case they can mobilise 20 per cent of the parents and then a contrived majority? That strikes me as the most unbelievably weak argument against the proposals. Moreover, it smacks of blackmail on the part of the SDLP and the bishops. What they are saying is: "Look, you do not want the schools taken over by terrorists, do you? If you do not, then you cannot trust the parents; you will have to accept the status quo”.
I should like to know where our Government stand really on that basic matter. Do they uphold the status quo of educational apartheid? As I said already, allowing for all the simplifications and so on, there is no doubt that integrated education is a step towards community harmony. It is important to know where this Government, particularly Fianna Fáil, the Republican Party Government stand in this matter. Do they stand for Catholic nationalism or for a common Irishness or Republican Irishness, or even indeed a common Ulsterness transcending atavistic tribal animosities?
I thank Senator Murphy for the opportunity of clarifying at least some of the points that he has raised. He will agree that not since the Chilver proposals for teacher training in 1981 has any set of education proposals aroused such a reaction among diverse groups in Northern Ireland as the present consultative document of the UnderSecretary of State for Education, Dr. Brian Mawhinney.
The motion today focuses on only one aspect of the Education reform package, namely integrated education. This was covered in only a few of the over 70 paragraphs of the entire consultative paper launched last March. Other equally important aspects of the proposals are — and Senator Murphy referred to some of them — a common curriculum consisting of eight essential ("foundation") areas of study; new means of assessment (which could augur an end to the Eleven Plus); greater freedom of choice for parents; delegation of financial management and the down grading of the status of Irish — a point which Senator Murphy stressed.
First of all, I think it is important to elucidate the exact nature of the new education reform proposals which are contained in the consultative paper published by the Northern Ireland Department of Education last March. The proposals are basically an adaptation of the Bill introduced earlier in the House of Commons at Westminster by the Education Secretary Mr. Baker. The overall purpose of that Bill is to improve the standard of education generally in England and Wales and to introduce a concept of three core subjects, namely English, Mathematics and Science, as well as a number of other subjects which have been termed "foundation" subjects. These proposals are partially aimed at taking account of educational problems which are specific to England and Wales. In Northren Ireland, there will be no core subjects as such but it is proposed that all pupils throughout the compulsory ages of education should engage in the following "foundation" subjects: English, mathematics, science, history/geography/ environmental studies, technology, music/art/drama, physical education, a modern foreign language.
Some people have raised objections in relation to the curricular rigidity created by this list of "foundations" subjects and the type of assessment procedures envisaged. That, however, is essentially a matter for educational experts and I do not propose to dwell on the matter here. What is of concern to us as a Government and is of particular importance to many people, both North and South of the Border, is the absence of any reference to the Irish language among this list of "foundation" subjects. We have put certain proposals to the Northern authorities in this regard which we hope will be taken account of in the eventual legislation which will be produced, perhaps in the coming year.
I shall now turn to another aspect of the Mawhinney proposals and one which is envisaged in the motion tonight, namely the encouragement of schools to move towards integrated education. To put the matter in context, integrated schools are currently few in number in Northern Ireland and operate in places relatively untouched by the present troubles. Out of a total schoolgoing population of one-third of a million, only some 800 pupils attend integrated schools.
At present in the North, most Catholic schools — and a few prominent schools whose pupil intake is mainly Protestant — have the status of voluntary or maintained schools. This means that they are owned and controlled privately by a board of governors or trustees. Only 85 per cent of their capital funding is provided by the state compared with controlled schools which receive 100 per cent funding. It is now proposed that at such voluntary schools, 20 per cent of parents may initiate a referendum of all the parents; a simple majority of those voting may then choose a new, grant-maintained status for the school.
Upon the approval by the Department of Education of the application for grant-maintained status, such a school would be constituted as a body corporate and would be funded by grants paid directly by the Department. Grants on approved expenditure, both recurrent and capital, would be at the rate of 100 per cent. A school could subsequently apply for grant-maintained integrated status where at least 20-25 per cent of the total enrolment was of a different religion from the majority of pupils. A school with grant-maintained integrated status would have additional advantages; enrolments would not necessarily be constrained by a school's existing physical capacity and priority would be given to the provision of additional pupil places in such schools.
Although the proposals are clearly at an early stage, it could not be expected that moves towards the establishment of such integrated schools would occur at a quick pace, and indeed there is doubt in some circles that there would be any significant move in that direction given the nature of the present proposals. Furthermore, opposition to these proposals has come not just from those groups who might fear integrated education but also from those who believe that the present structures of school ownership and control could be irretrievably damaged. For instance, it might be possible for extremist group's as mentioned by Senator Murphy, in certain parts of Belfast to induce 50 per cent of those parents voting in a ballot to hand over control of a school to people with a direct or indirect link with subversive groups. Obviously such a scenario would be undesirable from many points of view.
Other critics of the proposals underline the fact that integration in the true sense is not just about filling school buildings with a given ratio between Protestant and Catholic pupils. There are some very genuine doubts in certain quarters that integration might not in truth be a two-way process but rather a possible absorption of the cultural aspirations of one community. Were this to be the case, such integration would hardly be conducive to community harmony in Northern Ireland. Integration in its most fruitful sense would rather have to do with learning about what is held in common between the two communities and what aspects are quite different. Such open learning would engender the kind of mutual respect which would have a multiplier effect in the community at large. If the new proposals were to contain a healty respect and recognition for the minority culture, including the Irish language, it might be easier for Northern Nationalists to be sanguine about the reform of their educational system.
Many Senators will be aware that a Sunday newspaper on 3 July published a story — this may be the reason Senator Murphy raised this matter — in which Dr. Brian Mawhinney is reported as saying that the Irish Government were opposed to his proposals for integrated Education. I can categorically state that this is incorrect and that the Government have not made any statement publicly or privately in relation to integrated education in Northern Ireland. I can also inform the House that Dr. Mawhinney's office the following day issued a statement as follows:
The article was inaccurate. What Dr. Mawhinney said to the journalist at the that the South had reflected, at the Anglo-Irish Conference on 17 June, the Nationalist concerns about the position of the Irish language under the new proposals.
To conclude, I have attempted in my comments to-night to draw attention to the many concerns which have been expressed to me by those groups and individuals involved in schools and education in Northern Ireland. I would like to stress, however, that the present proposals are of a consultative nature and I am hopeful that the education authorities will take account of the representations that have been made to them. The next step, I understand, will be the placing of a draft order in council which will provide a further opportunity for consultation with all the interested parties. I hope also that I have allayed in some respects Senator Murphy's fears on the consultations the Government have had.
A brief comment, I just want to say that I am totally unconvinced by the argument that proposals have to be rejected because of the fear that democracy might take over. That is really what is meant by the fear that parents can be manoeuvred into giving over the control of their school to subversives. If that is the case in west Belfast, what is stopping the SDLP and other interested parties from mobilising their own sides, as it were? That strikes me as a ludicrously weak argument. I do agree, however, that any proposals towards integration must contain and recognise a healthy respect for the minority culture and the Minister does not have to know where I stand with regard to the Irish language. It is important that British Ministers should know how important the Irish language is and how important it is that it is not hijacked by the Provos. Having said all that I do recognise that the matter is at a very early stage.
May we have a question?
I do not have a question, I hope it is an answer I am giving. I do hope that the Minister and the Department of Foreign Affairs, recognise that it is in the best interests of the Irish people and, in the historical context, in the best traditions of republicanism that in principle our Government at the Inter-Governmental Conference look favourably on the principle of integrated education.
I should like to thank the Minister because essentially what I set out to get tonight was clarification.
The Seanad adjourned at 9.55 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 13 July 1988.
