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What if...?
I, like many others, see a lot of the problems in Northern Ireland today stemming from the segregation of society at various levels; none so damaging as at school level. As far back as 1968 Prime Minister Terrence O'Neill recognised that 'a major cause of division (in Northern Ireland) arises from segregation of education'.
But what if we had a chance to prevent this? What if there was no need for a 'Council for Integrated Education' because, shock horror, people actually went to school with those from other religions. What if religion was taught by churches instead of schools? I'm not a big fan of the way the French run their country, but the secular nature of their education system is one thing I admire.
What if, in the early years of Northern Ireland's existence, someone had the foresight to realise that dividing our children and segregating them from each other was going to cause trouble down the line and breed fear and intolerance?
Actually, someone did. Northern Ireland's first Education Minister, Lord Londonderry, proposed to enact a law that would:
- Have schools teach morals instead of religion. Religious instruction would no longer be part of any required curriculum (except where it was relevant under the wider scope of moral education) and would be banned in primary schools and schools run by local education authorities.
- Disallow the religion of an applicant for a teaching post being taken into consideration during the appointment process.
- Put schools under the control of local communities (something that had been supported by Protestants before partition but opposed by the Catholic church who had de facto control over Ireland's "national schools")
Baring in mind this was happening in the 1920s, it all sounds very forward-thinking. Unfortunately, not for the first time, Catholic and Protestant religious leaders found a way to work together (well, work separately against a common 'enemy' anyway) to destroy this idea.
Follow up:
Protestant leaders were furious and set up the "United Education Committee of the Protestant Churches" to fight against the changes. Protestant clergy wanted the teachers to continue to offer religious instruction during compulsory school hours (obviously they didn't have much confidence their flock would pass on the virtues of their faith if it wasn't forced on them) and feared that the appointment of teachers by school managers, rather than the regional education committees, would result in little Protestant children being taught by Catholic teachers, with a corresponding influencing the religious instruction given.
Opposition from the Catholic church was just as strong. In fact, they refused their invitations to sit on the committee that was discussing the issue in the first place; the committee upon whose recommendations the 1923 Education Act would be based. This was aided in no small part by the fact that the Free State Government encouraged Catholic teachers in their policy of non-recognition of the new Northern Ireland education ministry by paying Catholic teachers' salaries up until the end of 1922.
Sadly, Lord Londonderry seems to be another one of the people on the "If only we'd listened to them" list, up there with Terence O'Neill and Lord Carson. With such vehement opposition, Lord Londonderry's vision of secular education was all too short-lived; otherwise who knows how the last 80 years might have turned out.
Summarised from PRONI's A history of Education - well worth a read.