SHAPING A BETTER WORLDSINCE 1845

EDUCATION, EQUALITYAND THE ECONOMYBY TONY GALLAGHER

Education pivotal cover.indd 1 27/09/2019 17:34

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EDUCATION, EQUALITY AND THE ECONOMY Tony Gallagher Introduction Education in Northern Ireland has a curious history. It is often said, of such a small place, that if you can think of some way of dividing kids, then that’s exactly what we have done. The Churches have played a major role in education since the establishment of the Irish National School system in the 1830s and they successfully altered reform proposals presented by the first Minister of Education in the newly partitioned Northern Ireland in 1923. We retained single-sex schools longer than most parts of the UK and, unlike most parts of Europe, we have retained separate grammar and secondary schools. The ‘Troubles’ and Peace Process tested the social role of our schools and we have seen the creation of new sectors of religiously Integrated schools and Irish medium schools. More recently there has been a rise in ‘newcomer’ children in our schools, that is children for whom English or Irish are not their first languages. The second half of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the 21st have seen three broad generational groups in Northern Ireland: the ‘baby boomers’, the ‘children of the Troubles’ and the ‘ceasefire babies’. The first of these lived through a time of growing optimism, the second through a time of turmoil and the third through a time of hope. These years also experienced an educational revolution, the driving heart of which lay outside Northern Ireland. The early phase of this revolution saw the development of free, mass post-primary education, but by century’s end we were moving towards mass higher education. The nature of the economy and jobs dramatically changed, with the transfer of large parts of manufacturing to other parts of the globe, and the rise of the service sector. The political world also saw radical change, most notably with the collapse of European communism and the end of the Cold War. And the exponential growth of the digital economy created new opportunities and challenges for society as a whole, and education in particular. For schools in Northern Ireland there was, and is, an added challenge. Lyra McKee was a young journalist who was murdered in April 2019 during rioting in the Creggan area of Derry/Londonderry. Among her writing was a notable article entitled ‘Suicide of the Ceasefire Babies’, an article on teenage suicides linked to the conflict. After her death many commentated on the ‘ceasefire generation’ and wondered at how Lyra had managed to transcend so many of the traditional identities in Northern Ireland. She had been murdered by people associated with dissident Republic groups and it is sanguinary to note that the ‘ceasefire generation’ also contains young people who appear to have been convinced by the rhetoric of traditional advocates of violence as a political weapon. Schools and the wider education system in Northern Ireland face challenges similar to those found in most Western countries: they are meant to provide young people with the qualifications and skills that will give them opportunities for mobility; they are meant to contribute to the human capital of society and economic growth; they are meant to encourage the art of appreciating life, in its fullest sense; and in Northern Ireland they are meant to prepare young people to live and work in a society that has been characterized by division and violent conflict, in that they should provide young people with the skills and

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tools that will help them, not only navigate our divided society, but contribute towards making a shared and better society. These multiple purposes for education are interdependent, not independent. A society that cannot deal with the legacies of a difficult past, or help its citizens engage successfully with difference, is not one which will encourage a settled, democratic society and develop a sustainable, thriving economy in which all its citizens will benefit. A singular focus on a narrow set of economic priorities will fail to capture the wider set of social values and priorities necessary for a successful society, one in which a sense of the common good prevails. In this paper my aim is to explore some of the patterns and trends in education in Northern Ireland, at all levels. In many ways the period of the peace process as a notional turning point. The last generation to complete their education under a system run by a locally elected Minister was born in the 1950s, so what has changed in our education system in the aftermath of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement? To what extent has devolution and local control of education had an impact on education and educational outcomes? And has our education system managed to find ways to address the social challenges and possibilities that emerged in the context of the peace process? Has our education system provided the generation of the ‘ceasefire babies’ with better options and possibilities than the generations which preceded them? In the course of the paper we will examine patterns and trends in our schools and colleges, then focus on the outcomes of education. We will examine some case studies of strategic issues addressed by our local politicians and ask whether the shared political arrangements have lived up to their promise of providing a means for encouraging good governance in a divided society. And we will ask what all of this might mean for social policy in Northern Ireland generally, and education policy more specifically. Education in Northern Ireland The educational system in Northern Ireland is very similar to that in most OECD countries, with perhaps the three main differences lying in the relatively young age at which compulsory education starts, the continuation of a selective system of post-primary education and the significant role of the Churches in education governance. The compulsory period of education lasts from Year 1 to 12, aged 4 years to 16 years, at which point the pupils take their first public examinations (GCSEs). Those who stay in education will spend the next two years taking GCE A Level courses, or vocational courses, in school or further education college. Post-18 years pupils will enter higher education, further education or the labour market.

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Figure 1: The education system in Northern Ireland

The role of the Churches remains strong in school level education, as does the level of religious separation, even though, unlike England, few schools operate formal religious tests for admissions. As Figures 2(a) to 2(d) show this is true across primary and post-primary sectors.

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Between 2009/10 and 2017/18 the number of enrolments in Further Education fell from a little under 200k to just over 155k and the proportion of boys outstripped that of girls. The majority of further education students were under-taking part-time study. About one-in-four of enrolments were on further education courses, about one-in-six on essential skills courses and a little under one-in ten on higher education courses. Students in Further Education had a broadly balanced social distribution, with about one-in-five in the most socially disadvantaged quintile, and about one-in-seven in the least disadvantaged quintile. The sources for students in Higher Education are a little more complex: most local students attend one of the three local universities or two university colleges, though the Open University only enrolls part-time students, but many can and do choose to go to university outside Northern Ireland. The local universities attract a number of European Union students, though mainly from the Republic of Ireland, and they are subject to the same fees arrangements as local NI students. The universities also attract some students from GB, though they receive no public funding for these students and can charge higher fees. Finally, the universities can attract international students for whom the fees charged are determined by competitive and market factors. Figure 3 shows some of the consequences of this: higher education funding and fee systems vary across the UK and since the NI universities attract some public funding the numbers of local and EU students they can enroll are capped. Funding cuts over recent years have seen this number reduced and the local institutions have tried to mitigate some of the effects of this through recruitment of GB and international students. The proportion of NI students who opted to go to university in GB went up significantly during the Troubles, declined again in the early years of the Peace Process and has started to increase again in recent years: in 2008/09 31% of NI domiciled students in UK universities were outside NI, but by 2017/19 this had increased to 33%.

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Figure 2(d): Number of Protestant/Other pupils by post-primary school type

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The social profile of Higher Education students in NI was somewhat less balanced than that for Further Education students: one-in-eight HE students in NI were in the most disadvantaged quintile, while one-in-four were in the least disadvantaged quintile.

Patterns and trends The number of students and schools in the system has been changing, but currently there are a little over 800 primary schools with a little over 170,000 students, 133 secondary schools with almost 78,000 students and 66 grammar schools with 63,000 students. There are also 39 Special schools with 5,700 students, 14 Independent schools with 600 students, 12 preparatory departments in grammar schools with 1,700 students and one hospital school. Current Department of Education data also mention 50 EOTAS students, that is young people educated ‘off-site but not in school’. Included within these totals are a little over 22,000 students in Integrated Education (IE) schools; about 12,000 ‘newcomer’ children, that is who do not have English or Irish as their first language; about 6,0000 students in Irish Medium Education (IME), either in IME schools or IME units embedded in larger schools; and about 4,000 students from minority ethnic communities. Within the system as a whole about a quarter of students are deemed to have special education needs, although this includes every student in a Special school and almost 90% of students in EOTAS. About 30% of students in secondary schools have special needs, as compared with about 10% in grammar schools. Overall about three-in-ten students are entitled to free school meals (FSME), normally taken as a measure of social disadvantage. Over half of students in Special schools and over two-in-five students in EOTAS are FSME. Within primary and post-primary schools the level of FSME varies by sector and type, with 30%

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Figure 3: Students in Higher Education in NI

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entitled to free school meals overall in primary schools 40% in secondary schools and 14% in grammar schools. Since 2000 demography has been one of the key drivers in education (figure 2): in the early 2000s the total number of pupils in schools dropped and only started to curve upwards at the end of the decade, and we have still not returned to 1999/2000 levels. The enrolment levels of primary schools had been dropping prior to 1999/2000 and continued to fall until 2010/11. When falling rolls started to impact on post-primary schools, we can see that almost the total brunt of falling rolls was borne by secondary schools, whereas grammar schools maintained, or marginally increased, their enrolment numbers. Perhaps more surprisingly the last decade has seen a rapid growth in the enrolment levels of Special Schools.

Although not shown on the diagram, it is worth noting that pre-school provision had a massive growth from 1997 onwards as a consequence of being a policy priority of the 1997 Labour government. Thereafter there was a large increase in Irish Medium education, though in recent years this has been focused in Irish Medium units in existing schools, rather than entirely new Irish Medium schools (Figure 3).

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The Integrated sector has continued to grow, albeit now largely through the transformation of existing schools, as opposed to the opening of entirely new schools (Figure 4). Opening new schools in a context of falling rolls was not a viable prospect.

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Figure 5 shows that we have seen a significant increase the in the number of ‘newcomer children’ in the system, largely as a consequence of migration within the European Union, and it remains to be seen how this will be affected by the consequences of Brexit.

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We might summarise these patterns as follows: The main overall patterns of change among schools and students since the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement can therefore be summarized as follows:

• There was a period of significant decline in student numbers, particularly impacting on primary and secondary schools, though there is now a pattern of growth in primary schools

• Grammar schools were not impacted by the overall enrolment patterns, as they increased the proportion of students they admitted, to maintain enrolment levels

• There has been a more recent growth in the number of students entering Special schools • There has been a marked growth in the number of IME schools and in the number of students in

IME generally, through the rate of growth in students has been slightly greater in IME units in existing maintained or Catholic voluntary schools

• There has been a steady rate of growth in the number of students in IE schools, though the rate of growth in IE schools continued for about a decade and then stabilized

• There has been a steady growth in the rate of newcomer students in schools, evident in all types apart from grammar schools.

Achievement patterns When we consider achievement patterns in schools a number of important caveats have to be borne in mind. First, as a consequence of the neo-liberal market reforms introduced by the 1989 Education Reform Order, and largely maintained by the Every School a Good School policy, school performance has become both an indicator used by some, perhaps many, parents as a proxy for educational value, and it is used as a performance measure within the education system. Even though official school performance

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tables are no longer published, local newspapers get performance data through freedom of information requests and publish the details. Thus, there is still an incentive, or pressure, on schools to maximise their performance levels on ‘league tables’, even though official ‘league tables’ no longer exist. Second, this almost inevitably produces pressure on some schools to ‘game’ the system, either through maximizing the number of ‘low performing’ pupils who are removed from the official data for exceptional reasons, or setting high bars for students to move from one year group to the next so that only ‘high performing’ students move on. The consequence of this is that confidence in the completeness of official performance data is reduced and caution should be exercised when interpreting the data. A third caveat is that only aggregate data are available and most of that is at the level of individual schools. This means that the extent to which performance data can be analysed is limited and it is extremely difficult to understand the role of a variety of mediating variables in outcomes. In England largescale anonymized datasets of individual pupils have been available for some time and make possible much more sophisticated analyses of performance patterns. The Department of Education has access to individual pupil data but has consistently declined to provide access to these data for analysis or linkage purposes. Since 2008/09 some tables of aggregate data based on pupil characteristics, rather than school characteristics, have been published. A fourth caveat is that the Department of Education changed the way in which some official statistics are published after the restoration of the NI Assembly in 2007, meaning that some longitudinal datasets were broken. Perhaps one of the more notable aspects of this relates to the issue of religion, which is significant as the issue of religious achievement gaps have gained significant political attention in recent years. Up to 2007/08 the published data informing this discussion was based on school management categories, but since 2008/09 the data have been published on the basis of pupil religion. A further caveat, or perhaps contextual point, is provided by data on the pattern of performance over a long period, as can be seen on Figure 6(a) and 6(b) which show the proportion of school leavers with five or more GCSEs (grades (A*-C) or equivalent, and three or more A Levels (grades A*-E) or equivalent, both disaggregated by gender, from 1963/64 to 2016/17. In both cases there is a rising curve of performance, seemingly oblivious to education ministers, legislation or policy; and seemingly oblivious to the Troubles, or to Peace. There are undoubtedly a range of factors which have influenced this: improved teaching, rising expectations and aspirations and a modicum of grade inflation. These data could be used to make the case that standards had risen, or that they had fallen! The most important point here is that viewed in this wider perspective, it is important not to overstate the influence of recent initiatives on general patterns of performance.

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For many years the standard measure of performance focused on the percentage of school leavers achieving five or more GCSEs grades A*-C. The percentage leaving school with outcome has risen from 71% in 2008/09 to 85% in 2017/18, and as we noted above, has increased from 17% in 1963/64.

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There remains a (narrowing) gender achievement gap on this indicator, so that a higher proportion of girls left school with five or more GCSEs (A*-C) than boys, but there is no achievement gap in the comparative performance of Protestant and Catholic pupils. There had been a large achievement gap between leavers from grammar and secondary schools. Although this has narrowed considerably over the years, the reduction is largely explained by ceiling effects as 95% or more of leavers from grammar schools have been at this level since 1998/99 (Table 1). Table 1: % school leavers with 5+ GCSEs grades A*-C

1986/7 2000/01 2017/18 Grammar 83.1 95.7 96.1 Secondary 14.5 34.7 76.2

Since 2008/09 the Department of Education has tended to focus on the percentage of school leavers achieving five or more GCSEs grades A*-C including English and Maths as the main performance indicator for schools. The percentage of pupils leaving school with this outcome has risen from 59% in 2008/09 to 71% in 2017/18. There is a small gender gap on this indicator to the advantage of girls, but no achievement gap between Protestant, Catholic or Other pupils. However, because of the different numbers of leavers in each group, the number of Protestant leavers reaching this indicator had risen by 200, the number of Catholic pupils had risen by 1,000 and the number of Other leavers had risen by 400. Between 2008/09 and 2017/18 the percentage of leavers from grammar schools achieving this outcome rose from 93% to 94%. Over the same period the percentage of leavers from secondary schools achieving this indicator has risen from 34% to 51%. Here again the achievement gap has declined, but also largely because of ceiling effects. Measuring performance measures of schools in post-compulsory education has less comparative value since the we are not dealing with full cohort data, but keeping this in mind we can see that the percentage of school leavers achieving three or more GCE A Levels grades A*-E has increased from 49% in 2008/09 to 53% in 2017/18. Again, as noted above, on a longer timescale the percentage has increased from 5% in 1963/64 Since 2008 the number of Protestant leavers meeting this criterion had declined by 180, the number of Catholics had increased by 300 and the number of Others had increased by 170 There is a more stable gender achievement gap on this measure such that a higher percentage of girls meet this criterion than boys, with the achievement gap averaging at 16 percentage points across these years. The religious achievement gap has also been more stable in that a higher percentage of Catholic pupils met this criterion than Protestant or Other pupils, with the achievement gap averaging 6.5 percentage points across the years. There has been a very wide achievement gap on this measure between leavers from grammar and secondary schools. This gap remains wide, but has narrowed considerably, largely as a consequence of the increased number of secondary schools that have offered GCE A-Level qualifications. It is noteworthy that in 1986/87 there were 3,361 grammar school leavers with three or more A Levels, but only 251 secondary school leavers; by 2017/18 these numbers had grown to 7,484 grammar school leavers and 4,027 secondary school leavers respectively (Table 2).

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Table 2: % school leavers with 3+ GCEs A Levels grades A*-E 1986/7 2000/01 2017/18 Grammar 41.2 65.6 76.7 Secondary 1.3 6.3 34.1

Social disadvantage has long been recognized as a key mediating variable in performance and significant policy attention has been directed at mitigating this relationship. In Northern Ireland the routine way to measure social disadvantage is to use entitlement to free school meals, though it should be noted that not all pupils who are entitled actually take advantage of this opportunity. Table 3 shows the pattern of outcomes at three different performance indicators comparing the levels for pupils from socially disadvantaged backgrounds (entitled to free school meals) and socially advantaged backgrounds (not entitled to free school meals). Across all three indicators the achievement gap based on social background narrowed, though much less so for the A Level indicator. Examination of the pattern of change over time indicated that the achievement gaps were fairly stable for two of the three indicators up to 2014/15 and then reduced (see also Figure 7): this was the year in which the formula for school funding was changed and additional support went to schools dealing with higher levels of social disadvantage. At the same time the number of pupils who were entitled to free school meals increased from about one-in-six to about one-in-four, so it may be that an element of the reduction in the achievement gap was a consequence of a re-allocation of pupils across the categories, rather than as a consequence of additional measures. Table 3: Performance patterns for school leavers by FSME status

2008/09 2017/18 Change 5+ GCSEs FSME 43 72 29 5+ GCSEs Not FSME 75 90 15 5+ GCSEs E/M FSME 30 49 19 5+ GCSEs E/M Not FSME 64 78 14 3+ A Levels FSME 23 32 9 3+ A Levels Not FSME 53 61 8

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The intersectional effects are starkly illustrated when we break the data down by religion, gender and social background as can be seen on Figure 7 which shows strikingly wide achievement gaps: the proportion of Catholic girl leavers from affluent households with five or more GCSEs (grades A*-C, with English and Maths) is 46 percentage points higher than the proportion of Protestant boy leavers from social disadvantaged households. It is worth noting the level of attention that is focused on gender, and perhaps even moreso religious achievement gaps, but while significant, these achievement gaps are much smaller than the achievement gap linked to social background. Indeed, it is difficult to understand while this is not perceived more generally as a scandalous circumstance and subject to urgent and immediate interventions. Browne et al (2014) highlighted that the level of child poverty in Northern Ireland was higher than other parts of the UK and predicted that it would rise at a faster rate than other parts of the UK.

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Figure 7: FSME achievement gaps by gender (% not FSME - % FSME)

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Destination outcomes Since 1986/87 the number of young people leaving school had fallen from 27,000 to 22,000 by 2017/18 and the pattern of destinations have changed considerably as well. In 1986/87 15% went to higher education, 27% went to further education and 47% went elsewhere (the post-school destinations of the remaining 11% were unknown). By contrast, in 2017/18 43% went to higher education, 34% went to further education and 22% went elsewhere (of this last group 10% went into youth training, 10% went into employment and the rest were evenly split between those listed as unemployed and those whose destinations were unknown). There is a significant gender effect in relation to post-school destinations that reflects the higher levels of performance of girls and, in all likelihood, increased expectations and aspirations among girls. In 1986/87 roughly equal proportions of boys and girls went into higher education, but by 2017/18 50% of girls and 36% of boys went into higher education. In 1986/87 more girls went into further education than boys (one-in-three in comparison with one-in-five), but by 2017/18 the proportions were roughly equal at about one-in-three. In 1986/87 over half of boys and two-in-five girls went to destinations other than further or higher education, but by 2017/18 this had dropped to 28% and 16% respectively. The change in gender patterns highlights the importance of changed expectations and, potentially, illustrates the way enhanced equality measures can cause old stereotypes to melt away, as seemed to be the explanation of previous work looking at the uptake of Chemistry as it was linked to entry to Medicine (McEwen et al, 1997a, 1997b; Gallagher et al, 1997). This pattern also demonstrates the possibility for progressive change.

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Figure 8: % School leavers with %+ GCSEs (A*-C) including English and Maths by gender, religion & social background

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As was noted above, up to 2007/08 data on religion was broken down by school management type. From 1986/87 to 2007/08 the pattern of destinations for leavers from Catholic and Other schools followed very similar trajectories. The only emergent difference was that, over time, the proportion of leavers from Catholic schools going to higher education increased faster than the proportion of leavers from Other schools. The proportion of leavers from Other schools going to further education remained fairly stable across the period, whereas the proportion of leavers from Catholic schools going to further education declined over time. From 2008/09 onwards data were based on the religion of the pupils and so direct comparisons with the previous period need to be treated with extreme caution. For these data a more distinct pattern emerges with an interaction of sex and religion:

• Girls are more likely than boys to go the higher education, and within this, Catholics are more likely to go to higher education than Protestants

• Protestants are more likely to go to further education than Catholics, and within this, boys are a little more likely to go to further education than girls

• Boys are more likely than girls to go to somewhere other than higher or further education and there appears to be little difference between Protestants and Catholics in this pattern

There are marked differences in post-school destinations for pupils depending on their FSME status, as can be seen on Figure 8, which also shows an interaction effect with gender. Pupils entitled to free school meals are much less likely to go to higher education, in comparison with pupils not entitled to free school meals, and this effect is greater for boys than girls. The same relationship, in the opposite direction, in that pupils entitled to free school meals are more likely to go to destinations other than higher or further education.

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There are no differences in post-school destinations for pupils based on their ethnic minority status, but there are for pupils with special education needs. Pupils with Special Education Needs (SEN) can be placed on one of five stages, with stage 5 involving the preparation of a formal statement of needs and the identification of support to meet these needs. Figure 9(a) to 9(c) shows that there are marked differences in outcomes for pupils depending on their SEN status, such that pupils with special education needs are less likely to go to higher education.

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Figure 8: Destinations of leavers by FSME and sex, 2017/18

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Figure 9(a): destinations for pupils with no special education needs %

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Funding of schools Arguments over the funding of higher education in Northern Ireland have been well-rehearsed in recent years. The different funding regimes across the UK, based on balances of tuition fees and direct public grant, have placed NI universities in a disadvantaged position in relation to the level of funding they receive for teaching purposes. In the last few years, however, attention has tended to focus more particularly on the funding crisis facing schools. The extent of this was laid bare recently in a report from the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee (2019), but the problem had been explored, albeit in a more sober way, in a report from the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO, 2018).

Figure 9(b): destinations for pupils on the special needs registerstages 1 to 4 %

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Figure 9(c): destinations for pupils on the special needs register stages 5 %

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The current funding mechanism for schools has its origins in the Local Management of Schools (LMS) system established as part of 1989 education reforms which introduced a competitive market in education. The legislation allowed for greater parent choice, informed by performance data; a statutory curriculum and enhanced inspection process; and delegation of managerial and financial responsibility to schools. The point was to create a competitive market for pupils on the assumption that this would lead to overall improvement and a more effective school system. LMS was promoted as a means of providing schools with a budget which would allow ‘boards of governors and principals the autonomy to make decisions on resource allocation and priorities in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools’ (NIAO, 2018: 2). The total education budget is comprised of the General Schools Budget (GSB) and the Aggregated Schools Budget (ASB). The GSB is the total amount spent by the Education Authority (EA), while the ASB is the total amount delegated to schools, with separate funding streams to nursery and primary schools, and to post-primary schools. The ASB is expected to cover teacher salaries and other running costs. The balance between the GSB and the ASB is divided between:

(a) resources held by the EA and allocated to schools to cover all or some of the costs of such areas as teacher substitution, special education needs or other accommodation costs; and

(b) centrally held resources covering the costs of services provided by the EA to schools, such as school transport, or advisory and support services.

The ASB is allocated to schools using a funding formula. This system was implemented in the early 2000s when each of the five separate Education and Library Boards operated their own formulae, in addition to separate formulae operated by the Department of Education for voluntary grammar and grant maintained integrated schools. The formulae were revised in 2013/14 with the aim of enhancing support for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and reduce the level of educational underachievement. The funding mechanism is now operated by the EA. Prior to LMS the allocation of budgets to schools was opaque until a series of studies commissioned by the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights revealed a systemic under-funding of Catholic schools (Cormack et al., 1991; Osborne et al., 1992/3) and a link between this and lower average levels of performance among leavers from Catholic schools. The ensuing discussions led to a new arrangement in which maintained and voluntary schools could access 100% capital funding if they altered the composition of their boards of governors, while the application of LMS put recurrent funding on a more equitable basis by replacing historic patterns of funding with a formula largely based on pupil numbers. The current formula has 15 different factors for post-primary schools and 16 factors for primary schools (Table 4 shows the overall allocations for 2019-20). The predominant factor in the formula is the Age Weighted Pupil Unit (AWPU), which provides the basis for the level of per-pupil funding each school receives: for primary schools the AWPU accounts for 75% of the total allocation, while for post-primary schools it accounts for 85% of the allocation. The base AWPU is calculated separately for the two funding streams (nursery and primary, and post-primary) and the actual allocation to school budgets is weighted by the age of the pupils: the highest weighting goes to post-16 pupils, the next highest to Key Stage 3 and 4 pupils, and the next to Key stage 1 and 2 pupils. A detailed account of each of the factors and

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illustration of the application of the formula in different contexts can be found in a report issued annually by the Department of Education1. The basis for the current funding crisis in schools derives from the way in which the AWPU is calculated. NIAO (2018) showed that the GSB was a little under £2 billion for the years between 2012/13 and 2016/17, and that about two-thirds of this was included in the ASB. Although the cash value of GSB and ASB increased over those years, in real terms the budget reduced by over 10 per cent. The difficulties caused by this net reduction were exacerbated by a rising pupil population over the period. And herein lies the problem with LMS: at its origin it might reasonably have been expected that the AWPU would be calculated on the basis of what it cost to educate a child, with additional elements or weightings used to reflect the costs associated with school and pupil circumstances. In fact, the AWPU is determined by the amount of money available divided by the number of pupils in the system: thus, if the overall budget falls, then the value of the AWPU falls. Similarly, if the pupil population rises, but the education budget does not keep pace with this, then the value of the AWPU falls. In recent years in Northern Ireland NIAO (2018) highlighted a ‘double-hit’ on schools, with an education budget that is falling in value, and increasing pupil numbers, so that the value of the AWPU has fallen considerably. The greatest impact of this has been on primary schools as this is the area where pupil numbers are rising. Harden (2019) tried to estimate the cost of educating a child in England, on the basis of a reasonable entitlement for pupils, in terms of class size and teacher time, and for teachers, in terms of workload. Her analysis compared this figure with actual government spending and identified a shortfall of £5.7 billion for schools in England in 2019/20. No comparable analysis is available for Northern Ireland, but Britton el al (2019) show that education spending per pupil in Northern Ireland is already the lowest of any region in the UK (see also Belfield et al, 2018). Table 4: Formula funding allocations by school level and funding factor, 2019-20 (Source: Department of Education)

Funding factor Post Primary £000s

Post Primary %

Primary £000s

Primary %

Pupil AWPU funding 549,663 84.52 433,348 74.85 Premises 40,356 6.21 26,017 4.50 Social Deprivation 17,156 2.64 39,437 6.81 Small Schools 5,368 0.83 20,351 3.52 Foundation Stage 23,749 4.10 Newcomer Pupils 3,337 0.51 13,131 2.27 Landlord Maintenance* 9,653 1.48 514 0.09 Additional Social Deprivation 4,500 0.69 5,500 0.95 Educational Attainment 9,828 1.51 Admin. Costs factor* 6,935 1.07 826 0.14 Primary Principals' Release 7,406 1.28 Teachers' Salary Protection 811 0.12 4,933 0.85

1 https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/education/common-funding-scheme-2019-2020-final-draft.pdf

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Looked After Children 1,108 0.17 1,232 0.21 Children of Travelling Community 578 0.09 1,164 0.20 IM Curricular Support and IM Unit costs 766 0.12 737 0.13 Special Units 219 0.03 417 0.07 Children of Service Personnel 73 0.01 194 0.03 Total 650,351 100 578,956 100

*Factors which apply only to voluntary or grant maintained integrated schools to take account of support provided by the Education Authority to controlled or maintained schools Strategy case studies: Academic selection Northern Ireland has operated a selective system of secondary education since 1947 and did not move towards all-ability arrangements at the time this step was taken in other parts of the UK. Direct Rule Ministers, in a Labour Government, had initiated a move towards non-selective arrangements between 1976 and 1979, but this was halted after the election of Margaret Thatcher’s first government in 1979. As was the case in GB, there was little innovation in education policy until the neo-liberal measures introduced in the 1989 Education Reform Order (ERO) to create a competitive market for schools: as noted above, ERO promoted parent choice, informed by more regular and publicly available school inspection reports and performance league tables; the devolution of administrative and financial autonomy to schools so they could respond to offer a distinctive option to parents; a move to formula funding in which schools were funded largely on the basis of pupil numbers; and a statutory curriculum to provide a guarantee of minimum standards. In England and Wales, a new category of Grant Maintained Schools was established for schools which were publicly funded but removed from local authority control. The NI variation on this was the establishment of Grant Maintained Integrated schools. Prior to ERO a series of reports had been published by the Northern Ireland Council for Educational Research on aspects of the selective system (Wilson, 1986; Sutherland and Gallagher, 1986, 1987; Teare and Sutherland, 1988; Sutherland, 1990), but they had limited impact on policy and may, indeed, have contributed indirectly to a decision by the Department of Education to cease funding the Council. It was not until the election of the first Tony Blair government in 1997 that the issue achieved renewed focus, but Tony Worthington, the new Direct Rule Minister with responsibility for Education, was persuaded to commission research to inform a debate on the future arrangements for education, rather than simply impose measures on Northern Ireland. Two studies were published as a result of this, one providing an evaluation of the two-tier system operated in the Craigavon area (Alexander et al. 1998) and the other offering a detailed examination of the effects of the selective system of secondary education (Gallagher and Smith, 2000, plus two volumes of additional research papers). Additional papers offered a technical analysis of the tests used to select pupils (Gardner and Cowan, 2000) and a socio-legal analysis of the arrangements governing transfer to secondary schools (Lundy, 2000). Although the research was commissioned during Direct Rule, by the time they were published the Northern Ireland Assembly (NIA) had been established and Martin McGuinness had taken on the role of Education Minister. The Gallagher and Smith (2000) report had three main conclusions: first, performance on the selection tests and entry to grammar schools was mediated by social background; second, the curriculum of primary schools was disrupted as a consequence of time spent on preparation for the selection tests; and third, the selective arrangements produced a bi-polar distribution of school performance and, in particular, a long tail of schools with low performance outcomes. None of these conclusions were radically different from

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research findings from the 1960s onwards, across a wide range of jurisdictions, but whereas they had largely prompted the abandonment of selective arrangements in most European countries, at least until the end of compulsory education, Northern Ireland had retained the selective arrangements. On publication of the Gallagher and Smith (2000) report a Post Primary Review Body (PPRB) was established and was chaired by Gerry Burns. The PPRB was tasked with consulting on the evidence provided by the research, and any related evidence pertaining to the issue, and to come forward with recommendations for the future organization of schools. The Burns Report (2001) offered three main recommendations: the end of academic selection; the development of a system of formative, rather than summative, assessment in primary and post-primary schools; and the establishment of a system of Collegiates which would incorporate a variety of school types, including Protestant, Catholic and Integrated schools, and schools with different curriculum specialisms. The recommendations of the Burns Report (2001) were subject to a pubic consultation which provoked an enormous response: a ‘response form’ was distributed to every household in Northern Ireland and over 200,500 were completed and returned; an public opinion poll was commissioned to test views on the recommendations; ten focus groups were held with young people to gauge their perspective; 286 written submissions were received; 28 meetings were held with special interest groups with views on the issues; and 579 ‘written response booklets’ were completed and returned by a wide variety of education schools and organisations. In addition, the Committee for Education in the NIA published a four-volume report on the issue (NIA Committee for Education, 2001). There was little consensus in the responses and some were contradictory: for example, a majority favoured the abolition of 11+ tests, but not the end of academic selection; most wanted all schools to use the same criteria for entry, and most wanted parental preference to be the most important criterion. The Consultation Report on the Burns Report was published (Department of Education, 2002), but by this time the NIA had collapsed, and a Direct Rule Minister was back in charge. A Post Primary Review Group (PPRG) was established, with Steve Costello as Chair, and a range of educationalists as members, and was tasked with considering the results of the consultation and coming forward with practical recommendations for action. The Costello Report (2004) was completed in 2003 and published the following year: it supported the Burns Report (2000) recommendations on the end of academic selection and the use of formative assessment but did not support the idea of Collegiates. Instead of top-down collaboration, as was implied by the Collegiate model, the Costello Report (2004) recommended the establishment of an ‘entitlement curriculum’ which would require all post primary schools to offer a defined range of subjects options at GCSE and GCE levels: the entitlement curriculum was set so that few, if any, individual schools could provide the full range and would be required to collaborate with other schools. Unlike the Collegiate model, the entitlement curriculum proposal ensured that schools could have a significant influence over the schools they collaborated with and for how long the collaboration would run. A Consultation process on new admissions arrangements was issued by the Department of Education in 2005 and responses to it were published the same year2. A draft Education Order was published for consultation in 2006 and included a clause to abolish academic selection. During the 2006 St Andrews Talks aimed at restoring the NIA the clause banning academic selection was made dependent on an affirmative vote by a restored NIA, effectively giving the unionist parties a veto over the ban. When the Assembly was restored in 2007 it was clear there was no consensus on the issue. The new Sinn Fein

2 https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/articles/consultation-new-admission-arrangements (September 19, 2019)

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Minister of Education announced that the Department would cease issuing the 11+ tests with the intention that selection should end by 2010. Following discussions between the Minister and education stakeholders a paper was submitted to the Executive Committee of the Assembly in 2008, but not discussed. The last official 11+ tests were held in 2008 and in 2009 the Minister submitted a policy memorandum on the legislation required by her policy, but it also was not discussed and was later withdrawn. In 2009 two consortia of grammar schools established unofficial selections tests which continue to be administered. The Department of Education instructed primary schools not to run special preparation classes for the unofficial selective tests, a decision which was overturned in 2016 by a DUP Minister of Education (NIA, 2016). There had been years of intense debate on the issues, but apart from occasions when reports highlight the continuing problems and inequities arising from academic selection (see, for example, Walker, 2010; Elwood, 2011; Gardner, 2016; Leitch et al, 2017), the public debates largely petered out after it became clear that the Assembly was unable to reach a consensus and unwilling to find a compromise. The debate on academic selection divided on political lines in that the unionist parties adopted a position in favour of academic selection while the nationalist parties, and the moderate Alliance Party, adopted a position of opposition to academic selection. The debate also generated significant public participation, although the evidence suggests views in the wider society were mediated by social and educational background. Once these political lines were drawn then the intensity of the debate was not matched by any significant movement, save that the attempt to end the system by withdrawing the official tests served only to open an opportunity for two unofficial, and largely unaccountable, 11+ test procedures to emerge. By the end of the 2000s the debate had fizzled out, to the extent that all the arguments had been presented, little new was put on the table, and there seemed to be little interest or energy in pursuing the matter. In other words, the outcome of this debate represents the inability of shared government to find the compromises that might have allowed them to pursue a solution, and an abject failure by them to work cooperatively towards an agreed outcome and the common good. And, as we have identified above, the level of inequity in outcomes based on social background remain extreme. Strategy case study: review of public administration After the Good Friday Agreement there was a push to rationalize the system of public administration in Northern Ireland as there was a widespread view that it which had become rather bloated. The three main areas of focus for the review were local government, health and education. Proposals to reform public administration were included in the first Programme for Government in the new NI Assembly, with the promise of significant financial savings if the review was successfully concluded. Here we will look at the outcomes of this process in relation to the infrastructure for education, but first we will look at the system in place before the review commenced. The system of shared governance in the Good Friday Agreement used the d’Hondt Mechanism to ensure that all parties receiving significant levels of support in the Assembly would be entitled to places on the Executive Committee. In order to ensure that a plurality of parties would gain representation the number of government departments had been set at ten, with an extra department for the First Minister and deputy First Minister. In addition, a Civic Forum was created as a consultative second chamber comprising members from various civic organizations and sectors. Three additional bodies were created to manage North/South and East/West relationships across the islands: the North/South Ministerial Council dealt with relationships on the island of Ireland; the British –

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Irish Council comprised members from every Assembly or parliament in Ireland and Britain, including Westminster, the devolved Assemblies and the parliaments in the Isle of Man and Channel Islands; and the British – Irish Governmental Conference deal with relationships between the two main governments. This new infrastructure was additional to a complex system of public administration already in place in Northern Ireland. Knox and Carmichael (2006a) suggested this comprised 18 Next Steps Agencies, 53 Executive NDPBs, 21 Advisory NDBPs, 11 Tribunals, eight Cross Border Bodies, 19 Health and Social Services Trusts, 26 Local Authorities and a range of other charities, housing associations, etc. The Executive NDPBs that operated under the aegis of the Department of Education included five Education and Library Boards (ELBs), the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS), Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (CnaG), the General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland (GTCNI), the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE), the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), the Staff Commission for Education and Library Boards, the Youth Council for Northern Ireland and the Middletown Centre for Autism Ltd. The commitment to the Review of Public Administration in Northern Ireland (RPANI) was included in the 2001 Programme for Government, with recommendations and outcomes targeted for 2002. The purpose was to review existing arrangements for the accountability, administration and delivery of public services in Northern Ireland, and identify options for reform (Colhoun, 2007). Once the Assembly was suspended in 2002 the process was taken up by Direct Rule Ministers and the final recommendations were not published until 2006 (NIO, 2006). In relation to education the RPANI recommended that a new single Education and Skills Authority would be established. It would have responsibility for all the functions undertaken by the ELBs and CCEA; for the support functions previously provided by CCMS, NICIE and CnaG; and it would be the employing authority for all teaching and support staff in all grant-aided schools. A statutory Advisory Forum would be established to act as an advisory interface between the Department and the education sector, with membership drawn from the different education sectors and interests, including ‘a stronger voice for parents and young people’ (NIO, 2006). The proposal envisaged a strategic single authority with the capability of providing leadership and direction to the entire education system. The expected savings from the review were significant, with predicted savings of between £150m – £235m and ‘these resources [being] redirected into front-line services’ (Knox and Carmichael, 2006a: 962). In regard to the review of education the main claim was that the ‘streamlined system’ would save £8m in its first year, £13m in its second year and £20m per annum after this34. Knox and Carmichael (2006b) were more skeptical on these claims for savings:

3 Belfast Telegraph, December 21, 2008 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/executive-action-moves-weve-waited-153-days-for-28455147.html 4 NI Assembly Questions Written Answer to the Minister of Education AQW 6926/09 (9/4/09): Question: To ask the Minister of Education what is the anticipated savings in the education sector from the outcome of the Review of Public Administration. Answer: The Review of Public Administration in education is fundamentally about improving educational outcomes and equality of provision. In doing so, there must be a focus on ensuring resources are efficiently and effectively used for improving the most important service that shapes and guides the development and life chances of our young people and builds strong and cohesive communities. The anticipated efficiency savings arising from the establishment of the Education and Skills Authority (ESA) are £8.3 million and £13 million in 2009-10 and 2010-11 respectively. These efficiency savings have already been taken into consideration by the Executive in determining the budget for Education in each of those years. From 2011-12, the level of anticipated efficiency savings is estimated to be in the region of £20 million.

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‘… how people in Northern Ireland perceive public services is contingent on their views on its constitutional status (Direct Rule or devolved government) which, in turn, is linked to their support for the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, rather than the performance of public bodies. As a consequence, the reforms may result in little more than institutional tinkering with doubtful impact on the quality of public services.’ (Knox and Carmichael, 2006b, p97)

The Catholic Bishops criticized the proposals for not taking account of ’legitimate Catholic interests’ and having the potential to ‘radically undermine a long-cherished Catholic education system which has been recognized for the strength of its distinctiveness and the richness of its traditions and diversity5.’ When the Assembly was restored in 2007 the new Sinn Fein Minister of Education announced that the Review would continue, but more time was required to identify the best recommendations6. Political tensions between them meant that the Executive did not meet for five months in 2008, even though the Assembly continued to operate, and this resulted in further delays. Agreement on the new ESA was not achieved by the Executive until December 2008 and the new start date for ESA was set at January 1, 2010, 21 months after the original start date. The statement making the announcement said that ESA would ‘take on the functions of the CCEA, CCMS, the Staff Commission and the Youth Council.’7. In March 2009, the UUP criticized the plans as a threat to the autonomy of schools, a view echoed by the voluntary grammar schools8. Later the same month the Governing Bodies Association, which had no statutory basis, but broadly acted as the voice of voluntary grammar schools, criticized the plans in March, 2009, suggesting that ‘the Minister’s plans to centralize employment powers and other practices will challenge the ethos of schools.’9 By January 2011, the Minister had still failed to get formal Executive approval to start ESA, due to ‘political divisions’, and said that almost £10 million had been spent on preparatory work and the shadow ESA10. In April 2011, deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said that agreement on establishing ESA would come after the Assembly election that year, but by then the DUP was opposing the plans on the basis that they were unfair to the controlled schools sector. Due to the lack of progress the head-designate of ESA had returned to his previous job as head of CCEA11. In October 2012, the Minister of Education had still failed to get Executive approval for a Bill to establish ESA and accepted that he may not be able to do so within the term of the Assembly, which was due to end in 201512. In June 2014 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland suggested there was an ‘ongoing and obvious inequitable and unjust treatment’ of controlled schools in Northern Ireland, a view echoed by the Church

5 Belfast Telegraph, December 7, 2006 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/bishops-attack-schooling-proposal-28116773.html 6 Belfast Telegraph, June 28, 2007 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/ulster-needs-to-move-with-the-times-28397079.html 7 Belfast Telegraph, December 21, 2008 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/executive-action-moves-weve-waited-153-days-for-28455147.html 8 Belfast Telegraph, March 4, 2009 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/warning-over-trojan-horse-education-authority-28469367.html 9 Belfast Telegraph March 11, 2009 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/fears-over-mother-knows-best-school-reforms-28470838.html 10 Belfast Telegraph, January 4, 2011 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/esa-preliminary-costs-hit-10m-28580393.html 11 Belfast Telegraph, April 13, 2011 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/deals-over-reforms-can-be-reached-28607315.html 12 Belfast Telegraph October 9, 2012 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/single-education-body-has-cost-12m-and-it-still-doesnt-exist-28678678.html

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of Ireland. Both Churches called on the Minister to ensure equality of treatment for all schools in any plans for ESA13. In September 2014, the Minister of Education abandoned his attempt to get agreement on ESA and proposed a new Bill which would combine the five ELBs into a single Education Authority (EA) which would take on their employer functions. Only the Staff Commission was incorporated into the EA and a new body, the Controlled Schools Support Council (CSSC), would be created. There were changes also to the Board of EA which now comprised representatives of educational interests and politicians: despite the original promise there was to be no place for parents or young people on the Board. The legislation was introduced by an accelerated process due to the impending end of the mandate of the five ELBS and was passed at first reading, despite opposition by the UUP and Green Party. When the final Bill was considered in November 2014, it passed without a vote14. The Education Authority became operational on April 1, 2015. Apart from the Staff Commission, all of the other NDPBs that were supposed to have incorporated into the single authority continued to operate, and an additional one had been added to represent the interested of the controlled schools. Figure 10 summarises the intentions and outcomes of the RPANI process in Education and suggests it largely failed in its aims. As with the case study of academic selection, the review of public administration also seems to represent a significant failure of shared government. At its initiation the parties agreed on the need for a streamlined system of public administration in order to create efficiencies and identify additional resources for investment in services. Once formal proposals were available for consideration the parties started to pursue particularistic interests. Once again there was an inability to focus public debate on potential compromise solutions and little evidence of cooperative engagement between the parties in government. The original goal of a single strategic authority may have been overly-ambitious, given the institutionalized diversity of the education system in Northern Ireland, but in the end the review process lasted much longer, and costed much more, than had ever been envisaged; resulted in the consolidation of the five Education and Library Boards into a single authority, but one without the strategic authority or responsibility that had been intended; and ended up with more NDPBs than had existed at the start, when the original intention had been to incorporate them in the single authority. There is also little evidence to suggest the process saved significant funds for investment directly into schools.

13 Belfast Telegraph, June 6, 2014 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/church-in-call-for-all-schools-to-be-treated-equitably-30333398.html 14 Belfast Telegraph, September 9, 2014 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/time-is-running-out-to-resolve-political-deadlock-on-future-of-schools-system-warns-john-odowd-30571654.html

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Figure 10: Education bodies in Northern Ireland before Review of Public Administration, the goals for the review and the actual outcome.

Before the Review of Public Administration

•Department of Education•5 Education and Library Boards•Council for Catholic Maintained Schools

•Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta•General Teaching Council (NI)•Council for Integrated Education•Council for the Curriculum,

Examinations and Assessment•Staff Commission for ELBs•Youth Council•Middletown Centre for Autism Ltd

Goals of the Review of Public Administration

•Department of Education•Single strategic authority•Advisory Forum•General Teaching Council (NI)•Youth Council•Middletown Centre for Autism Ltd

Outcomes of the Review of Public Administration

•Department of Education•Single Education Authority•Council for Catholic Maintained Schools

•Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta•Controlled Schools Support Council

•General Teaching Council (NI)•Council for Integrated Education•Council for the Curriculum,

Examinations and Assessment•Youth Council•Middletown Centre for Autism Ltd

29

Education and the economy As stated at the beginning of this paper, one of the important roles of education is to enhance the human capital of society by strengthening the skills base. Figures 11(a) to 11(d) highlight some of the challenges in this goal for Northern Ireland. Figures 11(a) and 11(b) shows Eurostat data on the proportions of 30 to 34 year olds in EU countries and the four countries of the UK with tertiary level qualifications and lower secondary or less qualifications. Northern Ireland lies in the lower half of the both distributions.

0.0

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Figure 11(a) % 30-34 yr olds with tertiary education in the EU and UK countries

30

Figures 11(c) and 11(d) show similar data for different regions of the UK, this time for 25 to 63 year olds (Figure 11c) and 30-34 year olds (Figure 11d). For the working age population Northern Ireland has the second lowest proportion of the population with tertiary level qualifications and the highest proportion with lower secondary of less level of qualifications. For the 30-34 year olds has the lowest proportion with tertiary level qualifications.

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Figure 11(b) % 30-34 yr olds with lower secondary or less qualifications in the EU and UK countries

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London SouthEast (UK)

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UnitedKingdom

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Wales EastMidlands

(UK)

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(UK)

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(UK)

Figure 11(c) UK regional education attainment profiles, 25-64 yrs

Lower secondary or less Upper secondary Tertiary

31

These overall comparative patterns serve as a reminder of the weaknesses of the skills base in Northern Ireland which is, in part, a consequence of some of the wider weaknesses in education which have been identified throughout this paper. In addition, Northern Ireland is disadvantaged by the fact identified above that it exports a high proportion of young people who enter university in England or Wales, only a small proportion of whom ever come back to settle in Northern Ireland. There is limited recent evidence on the reasons for high level of exporting, but past evidence suggests that a high proportion of those who leave choose to do so (Osborne et al, 2008). In addition, Northern Ireland has a higher rate of participation in higher education than other parts of the UK, so simply increasing the number of places locally may not offer a solution. As we noted above the NI universities have increased the number of students they attract from outside Northern Ireland, but it seems likely that many of them will return home after their studies. The range of challenges which all this suggests was captured well in a report by KPMG (2017) which argued that the key challenges for Northern Ireland were:

• the high percentage of workers without qualifications • the need to focus urgently on adult learning and upskilling initiatives • the need to attract high-skilled graduates back to Northern Ireland • and the high priority in tackling the underachievement of many secondary school leavers

In addition, the report noted that Northern Ireland was the only region in the UK to have lower labour productivity than the national average in each of the 13 sectors it analysed, and that the sectoral mix of employment in Northern Ireland is less conducive for high labour productivity as it has a high share of public sector jobs. In other words, the educational challenges highlighted throughout this paper are not just issues of concern to education but affect the economic capacity and potential of the region and require a coordinated and strategic response across the full range of government.

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UnitedKingdom

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Figure 11(d) UK regional education attainment profiles, 30-34 yrs

Lower secondary or less Upper secondary Tertiary

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Education and a shared society At the outset of this paper it was asked whether education in Northern Ireland had met the needs of the ‘ceasefire generation’ and suggested that a society that cannot deal with the legacies of a difficult past, or help its citizens engage successfully with difference, is not one which will encourage a settled, democratic society and develop a sustainable, thriving economy in which all its citizens will benefit. Right from the outbreak of the Troubles people looked to schools and education to contribute to reconciliation. There was an unresolved debate on whether separate denominational schools reinforced or reflected wider societal divisions. Throughout the period of the Troubles a series of interventions were made through education to promote reconciliation, including the development of new curriculums and textbooks, contact programmes to bring young Protestants and Catholics together for joint activities, the development of Integrated schools and the provision of equitable funding to Catholic schools. The evidence of the impact of these interventions suggested they were limited, even though much was learned (Richardson and Gallagher, 2010), in part because the education system as a whole never placed this role as a key and meaningful priority. Partly in response to this a new approach based on the development of local networks of school collaboration through shared education was developed following the peace process (Gallagher, 2016) and currently over half of schools are involved in this initiative. There remain challenges in the fulfilment of this social goal. We have one of the most impressive citizenship curriculums in the world, but within the wider school curriculum it is probably accorded the lowest status. We have an excellent history curriculum, but it is only compulsory to age 14 years and relatively few pupils take it beyond this stage. Integrated schools serve as a rare example of a sector that came into being largely because of the commitment and energy of parents, but it remains a small sector with limited prospects for growth unless some imaginative new approach can be developed. Furthermore, there are challenges in the extent to which some Integrated schools actually achieve an integrated mix. Shared education has achieved a high level of political support, but there are concerns by some that it represents little more than an enhanced version of the discredited contact programmes run under the Education for Mutual Understanding initiative and that the spirit of innovation present in its genesis may be dissipating. Many young people are keenly engaged on contemporary political challenges, such as global warming, but the findings of the Young Life and Times and Northern Ireland Life and Times surveys suggest that they lack a sense of political efficacy and are more pessimistic about community relations in Northern Ireland than adults. The lowest voting cohort in Northern Ireland is young people and many do not even register to vote. It is hard to escape the conclusion that education could do a lot more to empower young people to believe that a better, shared world is not only possible, but achievable. But it is hard for schools to promote this sense of efficacy when we can see so many examples of education policy where political partisanship has got in the way of the common good and a positive response to challenges that have such negative consequences for the whole of society. Nor is it fair to ask schools to take responsibility for yet another social challenge when their capacity generally is being undermined by a lack of resources. The evidence considered in this paper suggests that our fractious political system has made it difficult to generate consensus on key educational issues and promote a discourse of the common good. That we also have a school system that is mainly characterized by division probably does not help in that goal. It often appears that responsibility for different aspects of education in government seems to operate in

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silos, within and between departments, and focuses too often on a narrow set of quantitative indicators that serve as short-term outputs, rather than long-term outcomes. Perhaps what we need is a grander vision of what we want all our young people to gain from the years they spend in education and that it is not enough to focus so much of our time and energy on the number of GCSEs. What if we were to commit to a goal that, by the time every young person completed their time in education, they would have the qualifications, attributes and attitudes that would allow them to live fulfilled lives as citizens? This would involve a recognition that we would not necessarily provide all with the same outcomes, but that all outcomes would be valued. It would also require a discussion on what that outcome would look like and what it would comprise. To refocus our goals for education in this direction would also require a recognition that the shockingly high levels of inequality in educational outcomes caused by social background is an immediate and pressing priority that has to be tackled as a matter of urgency, and that this challenge can only be addressed by a joined-up approach across all areas of government and the involvement of wider societal stakeholders. This might also help address the problem of politics. The deliberative poll carried out in Omagh by Fishkin et al (2007) highlighted the degree of flexibility and openness by parents towards educational systems. Parents are less interested in the aggregated consequences of different types of systems for ‘average’ pupils but are much more interested in a reasonable guarantee that their child will get access to a high-quality education. This, allied to the evidence on the effectiveness of participatory approaches to public consultation through such measures as citizens’ juries or citizens’ assemblies, may provide a more open approach to educational challenges that actually produces consensual outcomes. It is clear from the analysis presented in this paper that we need to deepen and broaden our understanding of the process affecting education patterns and outcomes, and that for this we need better data in order to understand the routes young people take through education and provide better advice on opportunities and outcomes. Most of all we need to escape the silos in education, not only within levels, but across them. Schools, further education colleges and higher education institutions all form an interdependent network of routes, yet we do not provide a roadmap of opportunities that show how people can access, assess and navigate those routes to best benefit. If we could provide such a roadmap it might also help us identify the pinch-points where arbitrary barriers to progress exist. And if we could achieve all this then perhaps we might be able to aspire, realistically, to an education system that combines excellence with equality. This has been achieved elsewhere and there is no good reason why we should not achieve this in Northern Ireland.

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