Northern Ireland’s integrated college

Press, 12 May 1984, Page 18

Northern Ireland’s integrated college

By

COLIN McINTYRE,

of Reuter, in Belfast

The only school in Northern Ireland to integrate Protestants and Catholics fully has been saved from the jaws of bankruptcy by the Government. Lagan College was founded in 1981 by a group of parents determined to overcome the virtual segregation of this troubled province into Protestant and Catholic camps learning, living and playing apart. Last year, Lagan applied for Government support as a voluntary maintained school, which would mean the taxpayer shouldering the running costs of around £240,000 ($NZ520,800) a year and 85 per cent of capital costs. Although the normal criterion for state support is an attendance of 600 pupils — Lagan has 165 this year — the school argued its case

successfully and champagne corks popped when its application was approved in February. All other schools in the state system are controlled by one or other church. Half the governors in Protestant-run schools and two thirds in Catholic ones are appointed by the churches. For a group of parents calling themselves the “All Children Together Movement,” the system merely reinforced historic tensions between the two communities. “We believe that if Protestants and Catholics can learn and grow up together they will form friendships lasting throughout their lives,” said Cecilia Lenihan, one of the school’s founders. All recent opinion polls in Northern Ireland had shown that two-thirds of the population fav-

owed integrated schools, but the system did not allow it, she said. Lagan College began classes in a wooden scouts’ hut on the fringe of Belfast with 28 children. A year later there were 90 pupils and this year it was 165. lagan is expecting 250 for next year and is already turning applicants away. All this has been paid for out of voluntary donations helped by the enthusiasm and commitment of teachers prepared to take a significant cut in salary to work at the school. A fee of £650 (SNZI4IO) a year was charged to those parents who could afford it, compared to the real cost of £l3OO (SNZ2B2O) a pupil. Those who could not afford the fees paid less, or nothing at all. Although donations poured in, many of them anonymously, the founders realised they could not

continue long without state funds and applied for Government support. Approval of the application was attacked by hard-line Protestant leaders, who complained that many of their schools were being closed down as uneconomic, but it was welcomed by nationalist politicians and the non-secretarian Alliance Party. The headmistress, Sheila Greenfield, lays much of the credit for the school’s survival on the courage of the earliest parents. “They were prepared to go out and say, ‘lf mine is the only child in the school, enrol him’,” she said. The school insists on a minimum 40-60 mix between the communities in each intake. Applications have been running at 50-50 so far, both from pupils and staff. More than 300 teachers responded to a recent advertisement for four jobs.

Though they hold separate religious services, the children share lessons in religious education and learn history from both sides. A Protestant victory in the 1690 Battle of the Boyne shares equal billing with the 1916 Dublin uprising which led eventually to Irish independence. The boys play rugby, traditionally a Protestant sport in Ireland, and Gaelic football, popular in the Republic and in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. The common reaction of pupils starting at the school is surprise at finding that members of the other community are very much like themselves. “In the beginning I was suspicious, but I found they were no different from other children,” commented a Protestant boy. “I didn’t know until I came here that there are different kinds of Protestants,” said a Catholic girl.