Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): I welcome all our witnesses this morning. I invite you to introduce yourselves. I understand that both organisations will give a short statement, after which we will follow up with questions.

Dr Michael Wardlow (Equality Commission for Northern Ireland): Thank you. I am the chief commissioner of the Equality Commission, and it is great to be here to add some discourse to what you have already had. I take it for granted that you have had the opportunity to read through both submissions. Peter will speak for five or six minutes on the strategic background to the Community Relations Council's (CRC) submission. I will do exactly the same for the Equality Commission submission, which means that it will probably take around 10 minutes. We then thought that the most opportune thing to do would be to enter into some discussion. It is a great honour to be here to talk about this issue.

Mr Darren McKinstry (Equality Commission for Northern Ireland): I am the director of policy at the Equality Commission.

Mr Peter Osborne (Community Relations Council): I am chair of the Community Relations Council.

Ms Dympna McGlade (Community Relations Council): I am the director of policy at the Community Relations Council.

Mr Osborne: I want to mirror Michael's thanks for the opportunity to be here today. This is an important inquiry and, from what I have read so far, a very thorough one, and it is vital to consider the issues. I will make a couple of brief comments from a broader perspective. I will look at the inquiry into shared and integrated education in the context of peace building and of the reconciliation work that has been done over many years in Northern Ireland and that remains to be done in the years and decades ahead. I also want to put on record how positive many of the achievements in this society have been over the last 10 or 20 years or so, including achievements by all the political parties that have contributed to the process and by members of civil society. I sometimes think that we do not recognise how far we have come, or the contribution that everyone has made, including politicians from all political parties and backgrounds. This is a long-term process, mind you. The building of peace and reconciliation may take another 20, 30, 40 or 50 years. In such a "pacted" process, as many would call it, there are considerable challenges and risks. There are risks if we do not keep moving forward; we need to keep moving forward, no matter how incrementally. There are risks that past battles will be fought today in different terms but over some of the same issues. There are risks that some things that were considered very necessary in a past decade are considered less necessary now.

When it comes to education and children and young people, we need to keep moving forward for this generation of young people, because they will be the leaders of the future. It is important that we do not let them be shaped by what has shaped us and the factors that shape us in society today. Our focus is on outcomes for children. Our focus is on educational outcomes, and it is about the needs of young people and the needs of this society and not particular systems, structures or forms. We want an optimum model for children and young people to learn and develop together. Remodelling will take courage, as it will take support to sustain the change that is needed. If we want to achieve the aims of the Together: Building a United Community (T:BUC) strategy, we need to tackle seriously the needs involved in facilitating more and more of our young children to learn and develop together. Let me quote from T:BUC. It states that we want:

T:BUC also talks about the need to take down interface barriers, for more shared housing and for things like cross-community urban villages. If we are to be successful in any of those endeavours or in any of the targets and aims that T:BUC sets out, we need a united community in which children and young people learn and develop together now and increasingly in the future. That brings big challenges to relationships: relationships between those children and young people, between parents of those children and young people and between teachers. That is a challenge for everybody, because, in all those contexts, separation is not a sustainable option. An important challenge is to understand the economic benefits of children and young people learning and developing together, of ending or breaking down a system of virtual benign educational apartheid into something that allows sharing to take place much more vigorously. It has been estimated that, if some village schools came together, it would save £100,000. That is a saving to the education system of £100,000, which can be invested in different ways: £100,000 for critical services and , indeed, £100,000 that can be added to reducing the costs of division more generally. We need to understand what that means and really grasp the opportunities involved.

The challenge is also about building a cohesive community. If we are to do that, we need an education system that tackles underachievement and involves communities more vibrantly and representatively in the management of schools. Look down the road to Dundonald High School, and you will recently have seen local communities getting more involved in its management, which did huge credit to the school and was extremely positive.

We also need to face the challenge of not avoiding the hard questions and issues about what sharing is, what criteria will be applied in sharing and integration, what milestones there are in the continuum of change and the courage that is needed to make sure that that change happens.

I also want to reinforce two or three things. This is about children and young people. It is not about structures, systems or forms; it is about the needs of those children and young people and the needs of this society. It is about the best education possible. It is about not letting down those from the most disadvantaged communities who are being failed by the education system, and it is about supporting the peace building and reconciliation needs in this society to try to help to create and build a more united community in the future.

Dr Wardlow: Thanks, Peter. Before I make a couple of specific points, I will pick up on that. We are on a journey that has been about how we make our educational system more porous. However, I think that, if we stick to systems, we miss the point. This is focused on young people; they are at the centre of this. It is about how we make a shared opportunity for those young people. On the one hand, we have had experiments for some years now, including integrated schools, shared education, Atlantic Philanthropies, the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) and people funding opportunities. Having moved through a shared future, cohesion, sharing and integration (CSI) and now Together: Building a United Community, I think that, with a little moral imagination, we can make a significant difference. However, I do not want you to be under any doubt: we cannot put young people where adults are afraid to go. Education will not solve the underlying fault lines of the problem in this place that we call home. It will certainly go some way towards that, but, if we are really committed, this needs to be resourced. We need to address all sorts of other things in the educational system, so we should not be under any misapprehension that shared education will deal with all the underlying educational inequalities. I am with Peter on that. This is about function and not form; form should follow function.

As a commission, we believe that societal mixing and cohesion are limited by, among other things, the fact that we do not have enough shared schools, whether they be integrated, shared or in partnership. However that works through, separation in education is one of the barriers to social cohesion and mixing in this society. We are recommending a move to a system of education that routinely allows young people to mix from as early as possible right through until they leave school. It should not be the norm that young people do not meet somebody who is different until they go to further or higher education or step into the workplace or an apprenticeship for the first time. Sadly, that remains a fact for a significant number of young people.

It is not that it is anybody's fault, and shared schools will not, as I said, be the only thing to try to bring about a more cohesive and shared society, but it will have a substantial role. Day to day, over 300,000 young people interface, sometimes with others. This sharing has to be deep and meaningful; it cannot simply be moving together in the same classroom. I shop in Marks and Spencer with people of other traditions, but that does not make me love them more. I have had contact with them, but, unless contact is sustained, meaningful and resourced — unless teachers are comfortable working with it, and it is supported back in the communities of origin of those young people — it will simply remain, in some cases, only that — like meeting somebody on holiday. Those things are important in and of themselves, but, if not handled properly, they can reinforce difference.

We also believe that there needs to be clarity in definitions. Obviously, we have not put forward our response to the Bill, and we note that there is a proposed definition of "sharing". Whatever the definition is, it needs to be clear and concise and to show what sharing is as opposed to integrated education. In our view, it should complement and not replace the duty to encourage and facilitate integrated education.

We believe that sharing in education can do a number of things. It can create an equality of opportunity that does not exist, does not depend on a postcode or where you live, is not urban versus rural, and whether young people have an opportunity to have that engagement with the other. We know that that is also gender specific. One school in six is single sex here, and we know that boys tend to perform better in coed schools whereas young women tend to perform better in single-sex schools.

A whole range of things are going on when we talk about sharing. It also has a hugely important role to play in good relations. Peter touched on that, and, hopefully, we will be able to tease that out a little. It is not for us on the commission to go over all the research that states that, when young people learn to work together and respect difference, it does not mean that difference disappears but that it is put in a context of tolerance and understanding. When that happens, people's friendship patterns develop. They are more likely to have a more positive attitude to the other so that people, instead of living parallel lives, live much more integrated lives. There are also sustainability and cost arguments. We would argue that cost should not drive this, but there are economic, social and educational benefits to sharing.

We also know that there are lots of experiences to be had from other jurisdictions and places. I have often said that, if a problem exists, it has been solved somewhere else and that we are not looking hard enough for a solution. So we should not think that what we are doing here is reinventing the wheel. There is huge experience in the shared education programme, in integrated schools, in some of the community relations, equality and diversity (CRED) programmes and in other jurisdictions, so we should not be afraid to ask for help from outside, but we should also cross-fertilise from within the system.

There is a huge need for us to engage with all stakeholders, not only parents, pupils and educational providers but bodies such as the Youth Service and those community relations and good relations workers who have often done this type of work. There is sometimes a fault line between the informal Youth Service and the formal education service. There is a lot of benefit to be had from the interface between those two.

I started by saying that this on its own will not solve the inequalities of the educational system. Huge inequalities remain. Whether you accept our view on, for example, the retention of academic selection or the removal of the Fair Employment and Treatment Order's exemption for teachers and teacher training, there is a whole raft of things.

Look at the underperformance of looked-after, disabled and black and minority ethnic (BME) children; boys versus girls; and underachievement not only in loyalist working-class communities but in some Catholic rural areas. Do not believe that this will solve everything, but it will be a start. As we said on the commission, this needs to be systemic, real and measured. More importantly, it is not about programmes.

This needs to be measured by outcomes. No matter what we put in the system, people will just behave that way because the law is there. We need to address hearts, minds and attitudes. Success will be measured by outcomes. Do young people, as a result, learn how to live better together in citizenship?

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Thank you very much. Peter, the CRC's submission calls for a statutory duty on schools to promote good relations. How would that work?

Mr Osborne: There are two or three underlying issues. We are saying that the statutory duty is needed because there is a real need to focus people's effort, and a statutory duty is the best way to do that. If something is legislated for in that way, I suppose that it focuses minds on what is required in particular schools. It would also make people focus on the means of delivery across schools. It would look at what that content might be across the bodies and agencies that contribute positively to that type of delivery.

Ms McGlade: Section 75(2) fits neatly with the promotion of good relations and sharing across schools. It is about finding ways to support schools to be able to do that and fit within this programme and the support programmes to help schools to deliver shared education. Some schools have been engaged for some time in sharing education, and others have not, some of them because of competing priorities in delivering the education system. Other schools, perhaps, have some resistance. We feel that this is not optional; we are in this peace process together.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Have you done a study on how good relations are being applied in schools? Is there evidence of bad practice?

Mr Osborne: Sorry, Chair, I did not catch the first part of the question.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You raised this as an issue, so have you done sufficient research to qualify this request? Are there examples of bad practice in schools? You mentioned that there is a certain reluctance because of competing pressures. What type of evidence do you have to support that?

Ms McGlade: I suppose that the evidence is on the other end of the argument, which is that those who have engaged in good relations programmes have done so very successfully, the results have been very good, the contact has been good, and the impact on young people, their communities and schools has been very good. It is to try to ensure that those who are not responding automatically to it are engaged through some encouragement.

Mr Osborne: From what I have seen in the schools that I have been to and the teachers to whom I have spoken, I would want to put a lot more emphasis on the positive work that goes on, because there is a huge amount of that across all schools from all sectors, and I would not want to suggest that the CRC is saying anything other than that. The organisation is about positively supporting that and encouraging more of it.

I also picked up from some teachers and others involved in the education system that there is a wariness about doing that work and a real view that one has to be very careful about it. There is a concern about putting one's foot in it in different ways. There is a lot of capacity already, but I think that there is a need to focus the work to help teachers to develop that capacity further to be able to deliver the work. A while ago, someone said to me that they thought that, in some cases, children were much more ready to do that than teachers, because teachers did not have that background or teacher-to-teacher training together with people from different traditions or have that contact and know how to work it as effectively as possible. The statutory duty will bring a greater focus and will put a greater obligation on schools to do it, but it also needs to be in a certain context whereby — you are absolutely right — it is about supporting good practice and trying to push that further and deeper down into schools.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You also referred to the level of funding that is being invested in shared and integrated education. You equated that to the limited number of young people who have benefited from it. Do you have a concern about value for money? Do you think that money could be spent differently to benefit a greater number of young people?

Mr Osborne: Value for money in terms of —

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You focused on the money that is being spent on shared and integrated education in your paper and highlighted the limited number of young people who have benefited. Is there an issue with value for money? Do you think that it could be spent better?

Mr Osborne: No. I think that the paper is suggesting — this is backed up by a lot of research — that children and young people benefit from learning and developing together. Research shows that, when that genuinely takes place with children from all backgrounds, they benefit, become much more rounded individuals and experience positive change in their ability to learn and not only to get a better academic qualification but to learn in much broader ways in personality, attitudes and so on. They then make that positive contribution back to society. The paper suggests that we want more children and young people to learn and develop together in that way. It is absolutely right that a relatively small proportion of children benefit from shared and integrated models as they currently exist, and the paper highlights that. The challenge for all of us is to get to that optimum model in which more children and young people learn and develop together. They will benefit from it, their education will benefit from it and our society will benefit from it.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Michael, your submission mentions article 64 and the obligation on integrated education. You say that shared education would benefit from being clearly defined and that the relationship with the shared model needs to be made much clearer, but you said that it should not replace article 64. Why not?

Dr Wardlow: It is important to say that there are two areas of the education system where there is a duty to encourage and facilitate — those are Irish-medium education, through the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, and the 1989 Order, which encourages and facilitates integrated education. When you bring in this third non-sector, as such, this is a type of education that a school can arguably work through a system to get kite-marked, say, to be a shared school. It is important for us, first, that that definition is clear. What is a shared school? If you are, for example, two schools sharing a campus, is that enough to be a shared school? We say, first, that there should be clarity of definition.

If you are, then, putting that into a Bill in which there is either a duty or a power — we have not responded yet as to whether there should or should not be — we are clear that there are parents who want a formally integrated school. There is a duty on the Department to encourage and facilitate that at the moment. Were a comparable duty to come in, we would see those as complementary and would not want to see shared education as some substitute or replacement for formally integrated schools. We are saying that there is room for both and, of course, for Irish-language schools, for which there is also a duty to encourage and facilitate.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Does the duty that relates to integrated and Irish-medium education not create a hierarchy of sectors?

Dr Wardlow: The Equality Commission does not have a view on whether it creates a hierarchy. However, when we respond to the Bill, we will consider whether there should be a duty or whether it should be a power. That will allow us to look at the other duties and powers that there are at the moment. Were I to say something now, it would be my personal view, and I do not want to do that, because as a commission we do not have a considered view. Our view at the moment is that if you are bringing in shared education and there becomes a duty or a power to do that, it should not be at the cost of the formally integrated sector which the Department of Education, at the moment, has a duty to encourage and facilitate.

Do you want to add anything, Darren?

Mr McKinstry: No. The commission's view was that that should not be at the cost of the formally integrated sector and that parental choice should be facilitated to access integrated education if it is so wished. If we wanted to move further into shared education, that could be an addition to that provision. The focus of sharing between sectors that has been discussed would allow the sharing between the integrated and other sectors as well.

Dr Wardlow: The important thing is that the duty to encourage and facilitate is to bring together in roughly equal proportions Protestants and Catholics and out of that comes the formally integrated school. However, transformed schools, of course, have also carried out the same duty. This is not about a structure but a type of education. Shared education seems to be similarly saying that there is a product that we are going to call shared education, but we are saying that that needs to be clearly defined. However, it is not the same thing as integrated education, and, therefore, there needs to be a clear delineation between the two.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): With regard to barriers, you mentioned teacher training in order to advance shared education. Would you, perhaps, develop that?

Dr Wardlow: What we are saying is that there is a number of areas — fault lines, if you like — in education at the moment that we do not believe contribute to the best possible sharing that we can have. We are agnostic about what the teacher training looks like at the moment, but if you remember when Queen's University and Stranmillis University College were moving towards a merger, we said that it would be unfortunate if that became the case because there would be St Mary's University College on one hand and on the other — I am using shorthand here — a larger, so-called Protestant training college. We are saying that you should be looking at the opportunities to maximise sharing when teachers are being formally trained, and, alongside that, we have asked for the removal of the exemption of teachers from the Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998. Those two things together act, in that sense, as barriers, so we are saying that we should optimise the potential for teachers to be trained together.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): It is outside the Committee's remit, but you will, obviously, be aware that there are ongoing discussions in relation to finance and the impact that that is going to have on the futures of St Mary's and Stranmillis, but there are opportunities, if we are serious about shared education, to look at sharing with other —

Dr Wardlow: Absolutely. There are other things that are happening, where teachers are being trained together in continuing professional development (CPD). With the early professional development and the ongoing professional development, it is quite common in the education and library boards that teachers are trained together. It is not as if this is a new thing; very often you will have teachers from a so-called Protestant background doing teacher training in so-called Catholic schools. This does happen; it is not the norm. As I said earlier, this is happening in places. It is about asking how we make that happen. Is it incentivisation? The way in which the system is set up must follow the function. We would like more sharing, and we would like there to be fewer fault lines. What would the system look like to be able to best facilitate that?

Mr Kinahan: Thank you very much for your presentation, Peter, it was great to hear. A lot of us forget the positive work that you say is going on all the time. The divisions are more often here than anywhere else. I have two or three questions. You talk about having clearly defined goals for where you are going, yet if you look at the definition in the shared education Bill, it calls for people to be defined as Catholic or Protestant or in a socio-economic group. Do we not need it more blurred so that we can get the mixed communities involved in it? If you have set definitions of what one is, people are going to have to fit into one or the other to be able to avail themselves of the funding that allows them to have the shared schooling.

Dr Wardlow: We will be responding specifically to what the Bill is putting forward. I cannot say what the commission's view will be, but let me give you some of the background to it. As it sits in the education system already, schools are asked to respond in a pupil census under five headings, so this is already captured. The integrated sector is asked from day one to ask parents to designate a child Protestant, Catholic or other, and if it does not do that, you cannot prove that there is a minority tradition of 30%. In the same way, when we track fair participation in the workforce, we have been asking the workforce since the 1970s to capture its figures on those broad terms as well. This is part of what we do.

In the future, would it be something that we would like not to have? It would be great, in an ideal world, that that is not there. However, if we are trying to say that there needs to be mixing, we need some evidence of how we know that that is happening. We know that, in one measure, up to 20% of people say that they are neither. Quite what that is saying about denominations we are not sure, but in addition to that, we have an issue about the use of the word "and" in the Bill. You have religious and political "and", and then, basically, socio-economic status, how do you measure that? For example, since the new measure of social benefit has come in, free school meals (FSM) has jumped from 7% to 12%. There is something about how we measure disadvantage; is it by FSM or by the receipt of some type of welfare or is it geographic location?

There are some indeterminates for us, but if we are saying that this system is meant to say that sharing is not just Protestant/Catholic, to use the old headlines, but about what we will call "class", it is about how you would measure that and what that is saying about your endgame. Does that mean that grammar schools have to go with non-grammars, or a rural school with an urban school? When I looked at the Bill, I found it difficult to find out what it was actually saying.

Your question, Danny, begs a question about what it is that we are trying to measure. If we are trying to measure x, then you need to have a way of data collecting x. This is not about numbers, however; it is about whether relationships are built that are sustainable and whether, at the end of it, the young people's attitudes are in some way developed so that they are more at ease with difference.

Mr McKinstry: As Michael said, the commission has not formed a view on the policy or the Bill, but within those documents, questions arise about whether we are looking to share between sectors or between the individual backgrounds of pupils. There is an issue there to be resolved. You talked about it being wider, and, obviously, the policy talks about the importance of sharing between mainstream schools and special schools and, obviously, that would fall outwith the definition. There are clearly some things to be worked through as to what the Bill is looking at and what the policy looks at.

Mr Osborne: May I add a little bit to that? Like the Equality Commission, the Community Relations Council will be considering its formal response over the next number of weeks, so we do not have a formal stated position on that. It seems to me, though, that the Bill identifies two of the big issues that we need to tackle around education. That is a positive thing. The Community Relations Council produced its peace monitoring report earlier this year, which highlighted really significant educational underachievement linked to disadvantage, particularly among working-class Protestant boys but also among working-class Catholic boys. It is across the community divide in different areas. If we do not tackle that, we will be storing up issues related to community cohesion in this society for many years to come. It is a big issue, and the fact that it is there in the Bill is important.

It is important also that, in the Bill, there is a recognition of the dual system of educating our young people here. The need to move to an optimum model where children and young people learn and develop together is critical. I think that the issue for you, as well for everybody else in civil society, is to ensure that what happens next is sufficiently robust to ensure sufficient movement on all of those issues. I think that, when it comes to disadvantage, that is quite clear, and part of that is linked to investment in those areas where that disadvantage is clear. It is linked to investment in schools in those areas. Across the water, a pupil premium is paid for schools that have kids who are entitled to free school meals. That is the sort of thing that we might need to consider here even more vigorously than we currently do. That is an investment on both sides of the community, and the CRC's report earlier last year demonstrated that.

On the issue of Protestant/Catholic and people from different community backgrounds, I think that it is important to acknowledge that, and the focus needs to be to have the courage to change the systems that we have to ensure that there is that optimum model of people learning and sharing and developing together. That is about the milestones and the targets. It is not about buildings, structures, forms or which system we support; this is about what is best for children and young people and this society. That is what needs to drive us as the primary focus of anything that we do.

Dr Wardlow: One point is important, and Peter picked it up. As I read the Bill, it reads almost as if this is about integrating and joining up systems. A lot of the measures seem to be about numbers and about projects. You need to search far to find out about attitudinal change in young people. If we are saying that shared education is a system as opposed to a product, I think that there is an important difference. Integrated education is both a set of schools and a type of education that I would argue could take place in other places if the same conditions were to apply. So, if shared education is saying that it is maximising mixing between socio-economic groups, Protestant, Catholic and other, but we are saying that that is limited simply to a Protestant and a Catholic school coming together, I think that we sell this short. I think that this is about optimising the opportunities that there are for this interaction to take place. Shared education, therefore, is a system and a way, but it is more than that; it is a way of doing it. It is the relationship building, and that, I think, is the brand rather than the type of system that supports it.

Mr Kinahan: What I was really looking for was some form of flexibility. We talk all the way through about how we measure the outcomes. That is the hardest thing of the lot. How do you see us measuring the outcomes in the way that you spoke about at the beginning?

Dr Wardlow: Very simply, there is a huge amount of experience out there from integrated schools, youth work, programmes funded by the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) and Atlantic Philanthropies (AP) and self-inspecting schools to show how you develop attitudinal change. You can see it in race and in disability. It is possible to measure the attitudinal development of a young person or an older person from point a to point b. You simply need to capture the start point and look at how it develops. Young people can write portfolios and take photographs. There are all sorts of creative ways. It has been done, so I do not think that we need to worry about reinventing the wheel. Schools are now much more self-examining. They know where their benchmarks are, and they know how to demonstrate success. But the most important people are the young people themselves; they can tell you and give you examples of how they have changed as a result of that engagement. I do not think that it is something to be frightened of, but I think that teachers need to learn how it happens. We need to look for where it is and bring it in. So, I am less concerned about that because I do think that it is there. In youth work, it has been there for about 25 years.

Ms McGlade: With the overall project peace, we are looking at Together: Building a United Community, bringing down barriers at interfaces, shared education and shared housing etc. Some of the measures will have to go into the good relations indicators for future generations. If we are working with our young people, they are the next generations who will be living in shared housing. They will have to help us to prepare to live in a society without barriers. Attitudinal change is one thing, but looking at how we progress and dismantle, if you like, the whole structure of segregation and work towards integration and a more normalised society in our peace process is also critical.

So, I suggest that, when we are looking at shared education, we also link into the other programmes and priority areas and key headline actions within T:BUC to see how it all fits in. We are also talking about young people not in isolation. Many of them go back into communities where they will need support to be able to be the peace-builders that we want them to be, because their communities sometimes inhibit that. It is about the whole joined-upness that you can measure young people and their schools and teacher training, but it is how our society and young people in it move forward collectively as well.

Mr Craig: I suppose I should welcome into the room the "Trojan Horse", as others described the equality agenda. That is tongue in cheek, by the way.

I read here that the commission is arguing that the rights of parents to select faith-based schools should not be allowed to overshadow the importance of education in maximising good relations. I would like to understand exactly what is meant by that. Hopefully, this will not be seen as another attack on a person's faith. I have a number of reasons for asking that. Not all faith-based schools are not mixed. A number of weeks ago, we were at Methodist College, which is almost 50:50 Catholic and Protestant. In my constituency, Friends School in Lisburn is about 40:60. So, a being a faith-based school does not necessarily mean not mixed. What exactly is the commission getting at there?

Dr Wardlow: We have predicated this on two things. The first is that the child has to be at the centre of this; and, secondly, we still accept parental choice. Because of the way that demography and money work, parental choice in accessing what are seen as good schools, in some areas, is about postcode. I am just stating what happens. So, parental choice is not absolute, and it does not work in that way, but it is at the core of our educational system, and we do not want to diminish that. Nor would we want to diminish the fact that there are systems in place, and we are not arguing for one system and doing away with faith-based education.

This is not to say that faith-based is any less than non-faith based or a secular system, which, as you know, we do not have. We have church-related schools in the controlled sector, where transferors' representatives are still on boards of governors. You probably have more of a faith-related system in the Catholic sector. The integrated sector is, essentially, Christian in character. We do not have what in other places might be regarded as non-faith or secular schools. You should not read into this that there is any sense in which the commission wants to diminish the rights of parents to choose a form of education, whether in faith-based or other sectors.

Do you want to amplify the specific point?

Mr McKinstry: Yes. You have covered most of it. Certainly, the commission absolutely recognises parental choice over whatever school the parent is interested in. However, the point behind it is that it should not impact on the system, as a whole, being focused on sharing. The commitments within things like T:BUC that talk about sharing becoming a central part of the system and impacting on every child's educational experience, are key and similar to the commission's interests and concerns. It is really just to make the point that we wanted to ensure that sharing is central to the system as a whole.

Dr Wardlow: Take, for example, Jonathan, Catholic maintained schools: fewer than 1% of children attending would be designated non-Catholic, and about half of those-Protestant. It would be totally wrong to say that Catholic schools do not support and promote good relations. Some Catholic schools have 50% or 40% Protestants at them — granted, though, they are very small in number. However, the mix of children attending is not the only parameter by which you can measure someone's intention to mix. Simply because they are designated "Catholic" and attended mostly by Catholics does not preclude them from any form of mixing. You should not read anything into this, and, should there be an ambiguity, we will correct that.

This is saying that parental choice lies at the core but is limited by geographic location and by money. We are saying that systems are there, but if we are looking at sharing in education, that should be the core, as T:BUC states. Systems getting in the way of that, as an excuse, need to be challenged. However, it is not saying that someone in a faith-based school is any less capable or able to share: absolutely not. In fact, the contrary is true is many cases, and you cited some of them.

Mr Craig: Is the underlying thought behind this that there should be some form of, almost, forced integration? I have seen bitter experiences of that in communities, where trying to force integration backfires. Integration comes about through a natural process almost, where parents and pupils make up their own minds on that issue.

Dr Wardlow: I think, Jonathan, the important thing is that "sharing" is the term and not "integration". That is why we say that there needs to be a difference. We have always argued that voluntarism lies at the centre of this. The problem is that you can only choose something if it is there. So, lots of people want to live in mixed housing, but they are still living separately because there is not an opportunity. Therefore, there is something about demand and supply. There needs to be a match to people's desire to volunteer and want to be in a shared system — a shared education. At the minute, that is not there. There needs to be something, and that may be in the systems, and it may be a systemic answer as well. However, we are not saying that people should be forced to integrate; we are saying that children should have the opportunity to share, and that that should be core to the educational system.

Mr Osborne: Chair, may I add one or two things as well, and it goes back to something that we touched on earlier in the discussion. There is a huge amount of positive and brave work going on in schools across the community divide, and I know that because I have seen some of it directly, as I am sure members have as well. We want to highlight and commend the schools for doing that rather than anything else; we need to recognise that when it happens. Jonathan, you mentioned a few schools. On the Catholic maintained side, the same thing happens. The children do an awful lot of learning and developing together.

At the same time, there is an awful lot of education going on where children and young people are not learning and developing together, and I think that that issue goes to the heart of where we need to progress as a society. We have not talked about a particular model; it is about optimising a model for that learning and developing for children and young people together. We have to face certain questions. For example, I think that the T:BUC strategy is very ambitious in saying that we should take down interface barriers and peace walls. However, there are a number of factors that are important in taking those interface barriers down. If we genuinely want to achieve that, we need to look at the safety and security that people feel on either side; we need to look at an inclusive process where there are not gatekeepers; and we need to look at the regeneration of those areas. Paramount, however, is the fact that we need to look at relationship-building across those peace walls. If we are perpetuating a system — this is not about some of the schools that you mentioned — in north, west and east Belfast, in Portadown, and in Derry/Londonderry where kids from one side of that interface never meet the kids from the other side of the interface, do not do any genuine learning and developing together and the depth of their contact is pretty shallow, then I know what we will get in 20, 30, 40 or 50 years' time. We will get the same attitudes, because they will be parents of children in 20 and 30 years' time, and the interface barriers will still be there.

If we really aspire as a society, and OFMDFM's T:BUC strategy says that we do, to take down those barriers, and if we really aspire to shared housing, then we need to have the courage to change how the system operates. I am not saying that it is one system or another, because this is not about systems or structures or forms; it is about how we approach the issue in our heart and in or head, knowing that change is needed in how we get children to learn and develop together. If we do that, and we approach it on that basis, which I think that we all know is the right basis on how to approach this, then we will develop a greater continuum of change within the education sector that we have.

Mr Craig: I do not think that anybody is arguing about the concept. I think that sometimes the practicalities do not work out on the ground. You are almost into the mindset of the people in an area itself and whether they are ready for that change. Some areas are and some areas are not. I have had that bitter experience myself locally when you talk about shared housing. With regard to where we are going with shared education, resources — or the lack of resources, if we are being honest about it — will drive us down that route no matter what. If there is not enough finance there to provide two separate schools and there is only enough finance to provide one single building, and you have a maintained school and a controlled school, the answer is staring us in the face. That is where shared education is driving this. The resources may well bring about the shared educational experience that we are talking about. I have seen an example of that in my own constituency when it came to the area-learning community network around A levels. That is precisely what has occurred because of a lack of resources.

Dr Wardlow: The danger is that people will see that they will be forced into sharing or integration. If you look at the integrated sector, you see that there has been an argument for a long time that schools choose to transform because they are failing schools. Tests were put in to ensure that that did not take place. It would be a terrible thing if people felt that sharing was only an option for closing down a school. We argued that communities should be involved in this. There was one example in Omagh a number of years ago where a deliberative poll was taking place. Parents were actually polled before, during and after a process of more sharing in the Omagh area. What actually happened in that area was that parents were not aware of what opportunities they had. To envisage something different and to have that moral imagination, you actually need to know what you can do. Sometimes, we actually think that maybe communities are not ready. The Institute for Conflict Research (ICR) did a piece of research in north Belfast looking at the potential for sharing. What it discovered was that parents choose a school because of its geography; because of conflict; because of its location to a wall; and because it is a good school. When you talked to them about sharing, they were actually up for it, but those were the barriers in their minds as well as being the big barriers. There are ways of actually ameliorating that and mitigating it. They are out there. There are schools that are actually working this through. This is not, Jonathan, something parachuting down — and heaven help us if parents think that they are being somehow manipulated into this. This is why community planning is core and key to this. It is not just in the education service; it is about how we have shared opportunities. That permeates everything, not just education.

Mr Osborne: Briefly, if I can, I would like to make two other points on that. Jonathan, I think that you are right about attitudes in local areas. I agree with Michael as well. When I talk to people in those areas, I think that there is more of a willingness to change than we maybe appreciate. I have to say that I think that can be encouraged when other people in public life — all of us, whether we be elected representatives or other members of civil society — find the courage to say what they really think on some of these issues and encourage that change in people's minds at a local level. It is important that that message is actually vocalised and then heard because that makes change easier.

With regard to the shared-education side of things, there may be many pressures that lead down a particular road. There is research in other areas which shows that, where you have one building and that building is used in a segregated way, it actually makes the situation worse. I have heard of some buildings where one particular community goes in one entrance and the other community goes in another entrance. I have heard of where a sports pitch is used by one community in the morning and the other community in the afternoon. That reinforces segregation. It reinforces mindsets and attitudes. That is why I think that the issue here is not about structures, systems, forms or buildings; it is about the needs of children and young people and society. It is where the continuum, milestones and targets are really important here as we push this into a better place around learning and developing together.

Mr Hazzard: Thanks for the presentation so far. It has been really interesting. Just to pick up on a couple of the later points and to play devil's advocate, I suppose, a bit; should we not force parents a wee bit more? Even around parental choice, if parents still decide to choose a faith-based education, how far will we actually get? I take on board what you are saying about attitudes in society, but should we not say to them, "Look, it is 2015. This is the best way forward." The Donaldson report into health is telling us that we need to take some hard decisions. Peter, you said yourself that we should not avoid asking the hard questions. Yet, in education — I am playing devil's advocate here to a certain extent — parties and people always fall back on parental choice. Would you agree with that to a certain extent? Is parental choice the get-out clause for people to say, "Well, the Minister cannot go ahead unless it is what communities want". Is there an argument that, if we always say that, we are not actually going to advance?

Ms McGlade: That is an interesting point. Our experience of working in lots of different areas with regard to breaking down barriers and all sorts of segregation has been that the important part of the work is creating the conditions. On the parental choice part, sometimes the word "choice" is key here. Quite often, we could ask whether there is a choice for people living in single-identity areas to do that and take that step. We need to create the conditions. I take Michael's point about giving people enough information. People live in certain conditions and are used to them. They are not thinking beyond that because they are not being inspired, if you like, or the conditions are not being created for them to consider whether there could be better ways or a better future for their child or a different way forward and what they are.

They may come to the same conclusion, which is that they do not want that, or, when they get the right information, they may consider different options. However, there is often a lack of information on the ground and a lack of engagement with parents on making those decisions. We need to work harder at that as well.

Mr Hazzard: We need to get our head around this. We are sending mixed messages to parents. Parents sitting at home value the choice that they have, yet, when they make that choice, they hear that they are institutionalising benign apartheid or segregation. They are saying, "Hold on. I've made a choice, and the system cherishes choice". We need to tackle the issue of choice. I myself am not sure about it. Is the choice right? Do we need to start pushing communities down a particular path? Is it the default position that the system is right for offering choice, or is it the case that our system reflects tensions in society? Is it that the system itself is broken? If so, how do we start to put it together?

If we start to talk about choice, parents will always choose faith-based education; they will always choose integrated education; or they will always choose Irish-medium education. We are always going to have what some people describe as segregation or benign apartheid, and we will always end up back to square one. I cannot help but think that various sectors here are on different roads. Some see the end as being shared education between the various sectors, while others see it as being an entirely integrated sector. I think there is confusion among parents. At the minute, when they are choosing schools, the vast majority of parents will not choose an integrated school. That does not mean that they do not support societies coming together. I do not know whether there is a question in there or it was just rambling.

Mr Osborne: I do not think that it was a rambling question, but I will give a rambling response.

There are a lot of factors involved in why parents choose a school for their children. I am not sure that you can ever get away from parental choice in that sense. I am a parent myself, and a number of factors will go into our choice of school when our son gets to that age. Some of those factors are reflected in the Bill. Some of it is about the personal development of children as they mix with people from different backgrounds and of a different gender. All sorts of factors will go into the choice made, so I think that it is important to have.

The Life and Times survey repeatedly shows that the vast majority of people want more sharing in schools, with young people and children learning and developing together. If memory serves me, that survey states that 80%-plus feel that way. I am not sure that the principle reason for the choice made by any parent will be around whether a child goes to school with people from one side of the community or another. The statistics do not necessarily reflect that. There are multiple reasons that parents make a particular choice about what school their child goes to. There is an obligation on people in leadership positions, in places such as this, and in such organisations as the Equality Commission, CRC and others to shape what that model is — I do not want to get into systems — in order to benefit the child and young person, and therefore society as a whole. In trying to shape that, I do not think that you can get away from the underlying core principle of the child and the young person sharing, learning and developing together. If that drives what that model is, it is going to be a model that almost all parents will buy into.

Mr McKinstry: It is also important to add that you can separate out the difference between parental choice regarding an individual school and a sector that has sharing at its core, which would want to encourage sharing between schools or within schools. That could be done through joint management or being integrated. Therefore, I think that you can have those two separate things. I go back to the commitment in T:BUC where sharing becomes a central part of every child's commitment. That is really saying that if it is every child, it is every school, and that goes back to the earlier question about how you incentivise, how you recognise that there is a continuum and how you move to being the norm in the system, thus allowing the choice while still having a pro-sharing system.

Dr Wardlow: We need to address the fact that the system is not set in concrete. The system leaks. It is porous in nature, and we should maximise that. For example, other jurisdictions have federations. They bring schools together under one head teacher, and there are multiple ways of doing that. They have joined together faith schools, joined together Church schools and have sixth-form colleges attached to two other colleges. There are system models that work towards an end. The system is fixed to create the outcome.

We have 1,200 schools. By some estimates, we probably have 300 too many. We have 500 schools with 100 or fewer children. That partly reflects how we have been in this place. We have separate systems. The nature of the state and how we have come to be here is another issue. We cannot simply delete 1,200 schools, but we can ask ourselves how we work within that system to make it leak more. How do we enable all parents, wherever they are, to have access to an integrated, Irish-language or faith-based school? More importantly, when they buy into that, how can we ensure that at the system's core DNA is sharing? That is the test. It is not about the systems but about ensuring that there is no postcode lottery in this and that parents have the access and young people the opportunity that T:BUC promises.

Mr Hazzard: I have two final points to make, one of which is linked to that. Do we leave it to the communities to lead the way, or should the Department perhaps enforce more change from the top down? For me, the three big issues that come out of this are academic selection, teacher training and — what we are talking about here — the integrated or shared model of education. Do you feel that there perhaps needs to be more top-down control of those issues and more political agreement to drive them forward?

The second point concerns academic selection and its effect on community cohesion. You referred to Dundonald High School. Talk to Ken Perry down there, and he will say that the effect of academic selection on the east Belfast community caused the greatest harm to that school. I would like your thoughts on that.

Mr Osborne: I will give you a personal reflection and move on to my general thoughts.

I failed the 11-plus. I had a brother — he is no longer with us — who went to Dundonald High School. He also failed the 11-plus. I failed because I think that I was too young when I took it. Had I been six months older, I might have passed. Therefore, passing or failing the 11-plus does not necessarily direct the rest of your life, but it certainly has a big impact. I am not sure that that is the best way in which to treat children when they are 10 or 11. Again, I think that goes back to the point about whether some kids are being failed by the system. I am not necessarily a fan of the 11-plus, but I also understand the need to give children and young people the best education possible. I also think that we need to try to get an agreed way forward around this, because children and young people are at the core, and some of the things that they have to go through at the minute are not reasonable. They are why policy should be made around that issue.

The other thing about Dundonald High School is that, when the community got much more involved in the board, that significantly helped the school. There is a vibrancy around getting more people involved in boards. How communities really engage with schools through the boards is important for schools. We need to reflect on how that happens between schools and communities. That is an example of how positive that sort of change can be when communities get involved in the management of their schools.

On the issue of teacher training, I am not sure that we can expect our children and young people to do something if, as adults and teachers, we do not do it ourselves. I am aware of situations in which children and young people are willing to get involved in some significant, hard issues, questions and dialogue with one another other, and many teachers facilitate that. However, I am also aware of situations in which teachers are reluctant to facilitate it. I suspect that that is because the teachers themselves have not gone through the training and capacity-building that is needed to engage in such sessions. I think that that goes back to relationships and our courage to make change happen, in a way that we know is needed in this society and for our children and young people, around teacher training and the general relationships between kids across the community divide.

Dr Wardlow: The commission has made its points on academic selection, but fixing that will not fix the system. You divide the education system seven ways here: Protestant and Catholic; boys and girls; those who pass and those who do not; Irish language; integrated; hospital schools; special schools. In fact, it is probably divided about 10 ways, and in a jurisdiction of 1·8 million people.

We would not start from here, but we are here, so how do we do what we can do, if you think of young Protestant males in a non-grammar school and young Catholic females at a girls' grammar school.

There is something wrong if, when we look consistently at outcomes for looked-after children, black and minority ethnic (BME) students, disabled students, and boys and girls, we see that the system does not come out with equal outcomes. Either something is going wrong with the method of teaching, which I do not believe, or we need to look at the system not just to provide more equality of opportunity and sharing but to enable those young people to fulfil their potential.

If they go to a non-grammar school, there is sometimes an expectation on young people that they will not perform. It is a poverty of aspiration. Some then have to over-perform to get there. We should not simply be saying that one type are bad schools and one good.

Every child should be able to get a good-quality education. If that means changing the systems at the end of it, absolutely, but we are talking today specifically about sharing, and I guess that we are saying there is also the socio-economic thing about sharing in this, which you have identified in the Bill.

Mr Lunn: It is good to see you all. Peter, you mentioned the community situation of some hall that has separate entrances for different traditions. On the basis of that, what is your view about one of the Department's shared education programmes, which is in the Moy? The proposal there is to set up one school to replace two — one from each tradition — but effectively keep the pupils separate?

Mr Osborne: You go back to why something is being done and to the benefits of children and young people learning and developing together. I would not necessarily say that the proposals for the Moy — I am probably not as aware of the detail as you, although I know a bit about it — are a bad thing, depending on what happens over the next five, 10, 15 or 20 years as that facility develops.

This is not about buildings. It is about the needs of the children and young people, and of society at large. Therefore, if there are milestones and is a real focus on the continuum of change in that community, you may have a successful intervention there. However, if it is just about two separate schools and one building, and everything is separate going forward, and in 10 years' time the kids still have no contact through learning and developing together, you have to wonder whether, although there may have been an economic benefit to having one facility, we are really optimising the benefit to that local community of the children developing better relationships with each other?

Dr Wardlow: We obviously do not have a view on whether it is good, bad or indifferent, but let me say what our principles are. On the face of it, it seems to be one community saying to the other community, "Your school could go, but if saving it means that you can share a campus with us, that is what we will do", that seems to be a reasonable act of generosity.

I have worked in single-identity communities that really want and are thirsty to work with the other, but this is a journey, not a destination. If you are saying that that is the endgame, I am saying that it cannot be the end game. Sharing has to be systemic and go to the core, but the alternative to that is that one tradition loses its school. You know what happens in communities if they lose the railway station, post office and, eventually, the school — those communities leak.

One of the arguments for setting up the integrated school in the Cutts in Derriaghy was that the Protestant community was feeling that there was a loss, and, rather than lose a school, it was happy to have a transformed school there.

Therefore, this is about more than simply having a school. If the school is saying an act of generosity took place, that is a good starting point. We said at the start that there is no one-size-fits-all here. There are buddy schemes and shared campuses, but it cannot simply be left there. The research in Scotland seems to state that shared campuses can reinforce division rather than promote sharing, if teachers go in separate doors and have different timetables. However, if it is a place in which to start formal sharing, I think that it should be welcomed for the generous act that it is. That is my personal view, drawn from what we say in the commission around the nature of sharing. Would that be fair?

Mr McKinstry: For us, we can separate the sharing of facilities from the sharing of curriculum and the sharing of classes, and the commission is very clear that it wants sharing in mainstream education for every pupil — a shared curriculum and shared classes.

Ms McGlade: In conclusion to that from a Community Relations Council perspective, our interest is in the quality of the sharing and the impact of the sharing — the learning from it, how it is rolled out and where it is working, and, indeed, how we can improve on it where it is not working.

Mr Lunn: Thank you all for that. The situation in the Moy is that the community survey was done. Out of that, 85 responses were in favour of what is now proposed, 70 were in favour of an integrated solution and five did not want anything to do with any of it. It seems to me that the influence of the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) came into play very heavily there, because CCMS has set its face very firmly — in front of the Committee — against any attempt to integrate a maintained school and another sector. It is absolutely adamant about that. If you compare that with the situation that is developing in the Republic — obviously, it does not have CCMS, but it does have a structure — you will see that it has become obvious that the Catholic Church, which runs most of the schools down there, has now realised that its position is not sustainable. Educate Together, which you have probably heard of, is now coming into play in a big way. I know that I am inviting controversy, but do you think that CCMS's attitude is sustainable or realistic?

Dr Wardlow: First, I do not want to comment on CCMS's attitude, because, for 15 years, I was the director of the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE), so I understand its situation. It has made it very clear that if a Catholic school becomes an integrated school, it can no longer be a Catholic school. If that is its working premise, I understand why the outworking of that is what it says. What we are saying here is that we are asking a community how we actually have a shared education system. When we go through an equality impact assessment (EQIA) and get a community response, we are always clear that the numbers are not the only thing that determines the outcome. The numbers are one measurement in the toolkit. Therefore, there is something about the full involvement of communities, and we have said that in our response. If you are looking at sharing in a community, it should not simply be a vote on something. It should be much more around community engagement and outcomes involving the young people, and we know how to do that in this place. I do not know the background to the Moy. I am simply saying that we know that, in other places, the communities perhaps do not get the voice. One of the things that we have said on our inequalities is that, too often, that civic voice is lost. Too often we hear so-called gatekeepers saying things. Community planning allows us a way in there, but it has to be a long-term solution, whereby we say what is best for that community. I do not know enough about the case, and I am not denying anything that Trevor said, Chair. I am simply saying that this should move beyond systems, CCMS and the controlled sector. This should be about how we best make a shared establishment for the young people in that area. If that is in two schools sharing or in one school sharing, that is for the community to decide.

Mr Lunn: I will tell you something about the case. Originally, CCMS opposed this adamantly. The first instruction that it gave to the maintained school down there was to withdraw from all discussions and have nothing whatsoever to do with it. It has at least moved in some direction. However, it has come up with a solution that, frankly, could happen only in Northern Ireland. It is going to be a school with two boards of governors under one roof, separate classes, one entrance and separate uniforms. The only hope for it, in my view, would be that it actually led somewhere, which is the point that you made, Peter. Twenty years down the line, good sense may prevail.

To me, however, it was a golden opportunity. Chris mentioned the possibility of a wee bit of pressure being applied in some situations. Almost half the parents canvassed agreed that integration was the obvious solution. To some of us it is the obvious solution. That is not to say that I do not agree with faith schools, believe me. It comes back to parental choice. Parents are free to continue to use faith schools, although with levels of faith perhaps diminishing in this country, that may have to change, as has happened in the Republic.

I will just take issue with something that Jonathan said. I always correct him on Methody. In Methody, 45% of pupils are Protestant, 25% are Catholic and 30% — a telling figure — are unattached, if I may use that term. Methody is a terrific school, and a very good example of how things can develop.

Dr Wardlow: It will be interesting to see, leaving aside the nature of the structure, whether the definition of "shared education" could be applied to the school if the Bill becomes law. This is about outcomes, and if that type of educational establishment were able to deliver over time what we define as "shared education", which is wide, deep, intense and intentional, the judgment is, if you like, taken by the outcomes or measurement.

I understand what Trevor is saying. It is not for me to comment on what the community has done there, because I am not quite sure where that is going at the minute. I have heard only what has been said in public discourse. What we would say again, though, is that at the core of this has to be the outcome for the young person. This is about shared outcomes, where young people really get to learn about one another, and facilitating that well, rather than the systems.

Mr Osborne: I would like to say two things in response. Again, I do not know the detail as well as Trevor.

Mr Lunn: I just explained it to you.

Mr Osborne: There is a real need for the benefits of the outcomes that we are talking about. The focus needs to be not on structures or systems reform but on the needs of the children and young people. It seems to me that there is a significant debate needed on why learning and developing together is good for those children and young people. I have not met a parent yet who does not want the best for his or her child. That debate might inform a lot of communities going forward about what is in the best interests of their children and young people.

One other thing occurred to me when you mentioned Methody, although I think that this is true of many schools. We are not dealing with a monoculture, in a sense, of Protestants and Catholics. That is not the only issue here. We are living in a very multicultural society. Methody and many other schools are examples of people being schooled from all sorts of different faiths and backgrounds, which, again, reinforces the benefits of everyone across this community learning and developing together, learning about others and learning the importance of living in this sort of multicultural society.

Mr Lunn: Just one more question, if you do not mind. I have got about 10 more, but one will do. The departmental drivers of the shared education programme were with us a few weeks ago. They were absolutely clear in their own mind that, as far as they were concerned, the aim of shared education is educational. If there are societal benefits, they are a spin-off or a bonus, frankly. I hope that it is a big bonus, but let us wait and see. What is your view on that? I would have thought that you would be more interested in the societal side.

Dr Wardlow: I read the submission. The issue for me has always been this: what is the purpose of education? Is it simply to create young people for university or to create jobs? Absolutely not. The Latin verb "educare" means "to draw out". The purpose of education is to draw out, not just to put in. It is both. When that best education takes place, there are societal benefits. The departmental officials say — I read it in their submission — that education is an academic process; that is, education is a synonym for academic learning. I would not say that that is the purpose of education or, indeed, what education is. Education is about how you learn to fulfil your potential in a pluralist world and how you relate: it is all those things. Otherwise, why are some subjects taught in school? There is a limit to the extent to which sharing is simply about education, because then it is about priorities and looking at how you do systems. This is about societal benefit, which I see as the key purpose. Lifelong learning is at the core of what we do. It is not just what happens between the ages of four and 18. Of course, there should be societal benefits. Sharing for me is academic or, in that sense, intellectual, but, equally as importantly, it is about learning to live together.

Mr Osborne: The Community Relations Council highlights in its response some research showing that sharing and learning together increases academic achievement for those who partake in that type of schooling. That is partly what I mean when I say that I do not know any parent who does not want the best for his or her child. Well, academically parents will get the best for their child when their child learns and develops together with other communities from different backgrounds. Separate schooling contributes to an own-group bias, which has societal implications, while learning and developing together benefits society hugely. In addition, however, it benefits the individuals who take part through raising their academic achievement.

Ms McGlade: A huge amount of money has been invested in sharing in education, not least in the shared campuses, so the purpose is sharing, but not only educational sharing. It is sharing as it relates to the T:BUC commitments. The Atlantic Philanthropies is investing a substantial amount of money through Delivering Social Change in shared education, for which Peace IV has also proposed a huge chunk. There is therefore a responsibility to ensure that the money is not wasted but targeted, built on and supported.

Mr Lunn: Certainly, the buzz at the moment is for shared education. Some of us are slightly worried that there is too much emphasis on it, which is why I keep hammering on about these things. Frankly, I wonder where we would be now if the same emphasis had been put on integrated education over the past 40 years. What difference do you think that the words "facilitate and encourage" have made to the integrated sector over the past 40 years? Now it is going to be cancelled out by the fact that shared education will have the same emphasis.

You do not have to answer that.

Mr Rogers: You are very welcome. I want to carry on from Trevor's points. I was a bit alarmed, Peter, when you said that some of the projects reinforce segregation. Have you, for example, spoken to the two communities in Moy?

Mr Osborne: When I made that comment, I was not dealing with a specific example. I do not know the details of the Moy project, although I have heard about it in the news. The answer is no, I have not talked directly with the various communities in the Moy.

Mr Rogers: It would certainly be worthwhile. I go back to an earlier point about societal benefits, and so on. Queen's University's Centre for Shared Education believes that there has been greater penetration when the outcomes have been educational rather than societal. Where do you stand on that?

Dr Wardlow: I declare an interest, as I served on the advisory panel for shared education at Queen's, because I am a senator there. I saw the early stuff, and then I worked for 15 years in integrated schools, so it is hard for me to set that aside and talk in my current role, which has a much more restricted brief.

I have a problem when people talk about hard outcomes and soft outcomes. I challenge anybody who teaches STEM subjects — the hard outcome being A levels — and says that those are harder to teach than a soft subject about the other, race or homophobia, or that the outcome is more easily attainable. I would love to lose those two words. The idea that educational outcomes are only measured in A levels and GCSEs at Key Stages 1 and 2 needs to be lost. It says that we measure numbers. Are we valuing what we measure or measuring what we value? I think that we do much of the former and that we should start measuring what we value instead. If we really value educational outcomes, measure them — absolutely — but measure and value how societal difference is impacted on by young people who learn to live with difference, who learn not just to tolerate but to deal with difference and say that, "I can still say who I am, and you can be who you are. I hear your narrative. I grow up with you. I learn to live alongside you, but I can disagree with you and still remain your friend or colleague". Sharing that is real, deep, penetrative and intentional can both deliver the educational outcome and reduce the impact of some of the prejudicial attitudes that we see.

We see homophobia, we see racism and we see all sorts of attitudes, even sexism, in schools. Almost one in five kids say that they have seen a racial attack or heard racial comments in school, despite all the bullying policies. The level of homophobic bullying is still high, yet we know that there are good policies. Of course, educational outcomes are important, but they should not determine someone's future or be the only measure of their life. If we are really serious about sharing, it is not simply about getting 24 or 27 GCSEs and A levels; it is about how we can learn to live together in this place that we call home.

Mr Rogers: You mentioned difference. It does not mean that the difference disappears.

Dr Wardlow: Absolutely not. Personally, I have some concerns about celebrating difference, because I do not want to celebrate all differences. We are almost being told, "You have to welcome what I do". Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a very simple example. No one here would say that we should celebrate that difference. I am being pejorative here because we need to be careful. This is not social engineering, bringing up children to say that we are all the same. This is about bringing up a society in which we can understand difference and realise that it is not a threat but something that enriches. Proper sharing can do that. We have well-formed young people, and you see that when you go to some of the shared schools. These young people are not clones; they live with and accept multiple identities. They are not born with a barcode stating who they are. Not all identity is fixed. I often say that, at one time, I was not a father, a parent or a brother, but I am all of those now. Identity moves through life. At schools in which sharing takes place, young people realise that their identity is not the only thing that forms them and that, in fact, they may have more than one. When that is facilitated well, it can only augur well for the future.

Mr Rogers: Do you see a place for religious or even political imagery?

Dr Wardlow: It is already in the curriculum. My colleague Darren put it well. Think of an axis: a single identity school in a single identity neighbourhood can enhance that part of an axis by having a shared curriculum. Its governance can be shared; it can bring in teachers from the other tradition; and it can have outside groups coming in for extracurricular activities. In so doing, it develops that axis. However, if it moves to sharing with other schools, it moves up to the point at which it impacts on what we see as good shared education. We should not diminish the fact that people can start from where they are. In fact, we should encourage and incentivise that, but it should be real sharing. We should not simply say, "You can't do it, so you're not in the game." Trevor's idea that we are somehow being shepherded into a shared education future against our will should not be something that people fear. However, if we are saying that it is a shared society, surely one element of that is how we can maximise sharing in the education system. We should not be afraid to say that.

Mr Osborne: The critical aspect of that is whether children and young people are learning and developing together. It is about the kids and the people; it is not about the buildings and structures. It is not about the —

Mr Rogers: Is there a place for religious instruction in schools?

Dr Wardlow: I have my own views on that. I have not heard that discussed or debated in my three years on the commission, so I have to defer to Darren. I do not think that we have formed a view on that.

Mr McKinstry: I am not aware of the view.

Dr Wardlow: Let me go back to see whether there has been one. I would be very surprised if the commission had a view that it should not be there. It was formed by the main Churches. People have asked whether other faiths should be represented in the primary-school curriculum. That is not for us to say. As you know, there is an opt-out, meaning that children do not have to take part. Some schools do not necessarily tell parents that, but it seems to me that the RE that is being taught is a great opportunity to maximise sharing.

Mr Osborne: I am not sure whether the CRC has a formal view on that either, but it seems natural to me that, if you want to understand other communities, you need to have some understanding of the religious side of things. Therefore, that should be part of the curriculum. The debate, I think, is how and where.

Mr McKinstry: In answer to a question on parental choice at the start of the session, we talked about the ability to attend faith-based schools, which would allow for that.

I want to talk about the Queen's research and the educational advantages. Obviously, the commission is very keen on educational advantage. We want every child to maximise their potential, irrespective of their background. Lessons on advancing the social side that came out of the Queen's research on shared education were the importance of sustained and meaningful contact and the fact that it had to be about more than isolated incidents or projects. There had to be the opportunity to build relationships between the pupils and build the idea of mutual understanding. That was key to advancing the social side.

Dr Wardlow: Interestingly, a few years ago, longitudinal research found that there is a domino effect. So, for example, Darren is a Catholic and I am a Protestant, and we become friends through a shared project. His friendship circle will have a reduced antagonism towards the out-group — in this case, me— through his friendship with me. We have all this research that states that shared education works, but it should not diminish the fact that it should be good shared education — in other words, as Darren said, the educational outcomes should be good. So we should be addressing underachievement. One should not be played off against the other.

Mr Rogers: Thank you, that was helpful.

Mr Newton: I welcome the witnesses.

A couple of important things have come out of the discussion. I am surprised that you have not made any effort to try to understand the Moy situation. Producing your paper without having looked at what will be a significant development, led by the principals and parents for the pupils and the entire Moy community, is a huge weakness. I say that as someone who, like others at the table, believes in integrated education. My wife and I tried to encourage our children to embrace integrated education via the Methody model, which is, I believe, a paragon. When we eventually arrive at shared education, I hope that it will be similar to that. I accept that we do not have a definition of shared education, but I believe that it will have many of the Methody features, which I know that people will embrace when they see it. That is, I believe, the way that things are going.

With your not having looked at the Moy situation, and based on what has been said, I find some difficulty with the ethos of the response, Michael. I am concerned about, and have a difficulty with, placing a statutory duty on principals and teachers. In response to the Chair's point about a hierarchy of sectors, you said that — I hope that I got this right — you do not have an opinion on that. Surely the Equality Commission should have an opinion when one sector is disadvantaged against another in the educational process. What you said gives me some concern.

It is certainly not coming through to me that either the CRC or the Equality Commission embraces shared education with any enthusiasm. Is it not true that shared education is, perhaps, a logical step on the way, finally, to integrated education? However, it is totally focused; it is not forced. It is just a natural educational process that parents, schools and bodies will embrace for their betterment. Whether it is societal or educational, I believe that society and the educational process will work it out and gain advantage from it.

Dr Wardlow: Let me respond to the simplest point first. We have not asked for a statutory duty to be put on schools; in fact, the opposite is true. We have been arguing that the section 75 duties should not be put on schools, and that is our current position. Schools already sit under bodies that have a section 75 duty, and, therefore, for anything that a school does, there is a subvention under that. The various anti-discrimination laws, with the exception of the Fair Employment and Treatment Order, apply to young people and teachers in schools. Transgender children are not covered by equality legislation in a school, and there is an exemption in the curriculum as a result of the discussions on sexual orientation. So, Robin, I am not sure where you read that.

Mr Newton: I may have picked it up wrongly. I am sure that I will not find it again.

Dr Wardlow: That is the easiest one for us. We do not believe that, at the minute, there is enough evidence for us to say that we should put that duty on the 1,200 schools. The Minister is minded to look at that, and we are quite happy to respond to it, if and when it comes. However, our current position is that there are enough protections without it.

Secondly, on the Moy, this may come down to us trying to explain to people the role of the Equality Commission. It is what I tried to say at the start. The Equality Commission is a creature of statute that has certain responsibilities placed on it. Looking at what is happening in shared education, shared villages or shared housing is not one of those responsibilities. Our role is to look at government policy or the policy of public bodies and at the implementation of their statutory duties and whether they comply. If, in doing this, we felt, or it was reported, that one of the statutory bodies in the controlled or maintained sector was in dereliction of their duty, we could have a view on it. So, it is probably a misunderstanding of our role, Robin. That is not trying to dodge anything. We do not have a view on the Moy, but I am very happy to bring your concerns back to the commission before we take our view on the Bill. I undertake to do that.

Thirdly, you mentioned the hierarchy. This is also about the Equality Commission taking a view on current legislation, the carrying out of policy, and whether the current 1989 Education Reform Order breaches any equality duties. It does not, to the best of my knowledge. No case has ever been raised. There has never been an issue on which the Equality Commission has said that something gives a higher level to the integrated or Irish language sector than to other sectors, which have the education and library boards and CCMS to promote them.

Finally, on the question of our embracing shared education, it can be hard to put passion into a written response. There was unanimity on our board when we were signing this off. We welcomed it, and we have said that. However, as we do not yet have the full response to the Bill, we have not talked about what sharing should be defined as. Let me make it clear that this is absolutely a very good step. If it is systemic and sustained and has all the outcomes and parameters that we outlined, we absolutely embrace it. As to whether this is the road to formally integrated schools, there are those who believe that to be the case. Our view, at the minute, is that some parents will want formally integrated schools and they should continue to be supported; other parents will want a shared educational system, which may or may not end up in a formally integrated school, and they should also be supported. If that did not come through in the response, I am sorry.

Mr McKinstry: The commission has been very clear in a number of responses that it feels that sharing should be central to the system, it should be meaningful and it should impact on every pupil. I will clarify the first point: we have said that we feel that shared education is likely to benefit from a statutory obligation on the Department. However, we last looked at the issue seven years ago. We have not said that we think that schools would benefit from having a statutory obligation placed on them. There seem to be various models being proposed in the sector, whether it is a variant of section 75, enhanced or light; a policy directive from DE; or mainstreaming through the curriculum. If the Department is going to look at that, we look forward to seeing the outcome.

Dr Wardlow: The issue is how you ensure that a school fulfils a duty of the Department, which has a policy aim of sharing. That is why, as we talked about, you have to value what you measure.

Mr Osborne: I agree with the tenor of what was said in a couple of those responses. The CRC is probably in the same place. For us, the critical issue is children and young people learning and developing together. If shared education helped to bring that about, we would warmly welcome it. You will be aware, Robin, that there are many different views on all of these issues. We, as an organisation, will want to embrace and understand all those views. If it leads to children and young people learning and developing together — hopefully, it will — it is, potentially, a very positive move. I think that it is about the continuum and what happens over the next number of years.

Personally, I have not been down to the Moy, but I am very happy to do that. I am not sure whether the organisation did so as part of formulating its response. I will find out. We should be learning more actively from that.

Mr Newton: I think that shared education will share many features of that brand. The important thing is that all those who have the best interests of children as their priority — the parents and principals — can buy into it.

Mr McCausland: Thank you for your presentations and the papers that we were given. I will start with a couple of questions to the Community Relations Council. In fact, I have a statement first. I welcome the fact that your paper states:

We have had a number of references this morning to religious diversity, but we also heard the term "multicultural", and Michael reminded us that identity is multilayered or multifaceted. I welcome your endorsement of that importance by the UNCRC. In particular, you draw our attention to article 29(1)(c), which states:

So the CRC recognises the importance of the right of the child to be educated in relation to the culture of the community from which they come. That is good.

You also reference the Human Rights Commission report on education reform in Northern Ireland, which says that it is important:

I took that up with other folk who were here making presentations because, before you even get to the shared arrangement, it is important that children come together on the basis of equality. That point was highlighted to the Committee by a number of academics and by others who have written about it but have not yet been to see us. I welcome that.

Has the CRC carried out any investigation of or inquiry into how the cultural rights of children are being realised or implemented across the different sectors in Northern Ireland? Are you aware of any research on that? We are bringing together different sectors here. Clearly, an Irish-medium education sector will have a strong Irish cultural ethos, with the Irish language, Irish traditional music, Gaelic games etc. The same is largely true, although to a lesser degree in language, in the Catholic maintained sector. Have you any views on the controlled sector or done any work on that?

Ms McGlade: Do you mean training?

Mr McCausland: I would like to know how well the rights of the children are being realised or implemented in the controlled sector. Are there differences of approach to culture in the classroom between the Irish-medium, the Catholic-maintained and the controlled sectors? We have heard views from others on this.

Ms McGlade: Our interest is in bringing the diversity together, rather than exploring how the curriculum is delivered. Is that what you mean, Nelson?

Mr McCausland: No. You mentioned that children have the right to learn about their culture in school. One of the purposes of education should be a child learning about his or her cultural identity, language and values, because what is taught in a school is affirmed by the system to be of value, worthwhile and something to be affirmed, so it is seen as a positive; whereas, if something is kept out of a school, it is seen, largely, in a negative way.

Quite clearly, there is a strong cultural ethos in certain sectors. Have you any thoughts on how that is working out in the controlled sector?

Ms McGlade: Key to that is teacher training, sharing, understanding and diversity. We have engaged with our groups on the ground and supported them in engaging with the schools to explore cultural identity and others' identities. Of course, there is the commemoration aspect of the work: understanding how people view history and reflect on it. Through engaging with schools, we are doing a lot of work on that.

Mr McCausland: I am encouraged by your mention of that in the presentation. I am disappointed that, across the presentations — I will come to the Equality Commission in a moment — there has not yet been an acknowledgement of the different approaches to culture and traditions across the different sectors. If you bring together children from different sectors and cultural backgrounds — one group's background is that its cultural identity is affirmed, validated, esteemed and embraced in the school, but another group comes from a community in which cultural activities and so on are, in some cases, locked out of the school or given limited access without being mainstreamed in the curriculum — you do so on an unequal basis. Previously, I have used the Pierre Trudeau metaphor of Canada being in bed with the elephant of America. How do you work on bringing groups of children together so that both come with the same cultural confidence to engage with and embrace each other?

Ms McGlade: Are you suggesting that a section of the community is being disadvantaged in accessing its culture in school?

Mr McCausland: It is an issue that has been around for quite a number of years. I remember going to the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) about it in the mid-1990s. A very senior person in CCEA at the time, who has since moved on to even better things, made this point: a Catholic school is part of the parish, which has its GAA club and all its cultural identity, so it is rooted and grounded; the controlled sector deals with culture differently. So, should the CCEA want to organise an event, it could go to a large number of Catholic maintained schools to get an Irish traditional music group to perform. He said that when CCEA went to a controlled school — he mentioned one somewhere near Castlederg, I think, that had a pipe band — the choice was very limited. That is just a small illustration of a fundamental difference. Has CRC looked at that?

Ms McGlade: It has not been raised with us as an issue that anyone said that they wanted to explore further. Nelson, our interest is in bringing together children to share and explore together their diverse backgrounds. In relation to the sector —

Mr McCausland: So CRC has no interest in —

Ms McGlade: We certainly have. You have raised it, and, if it is an issue, I am happy to speak to you about it. The specific issue of children in a school being disadvantaged when it comes to accessing their identity or traditions has not been raised with us.

Mr McCausland: At the moment, the Ulster-Scots Agency, for example, has to fund directly from its core budget programmes in schools and certain cultural activities. So, it may facilitate the school in providing additional teaching in Scottish country dancing or whatever the activity is. It is not necessarily automatically embraced.

Ms McGlade: I see. The programmes that we are engaged in with schools to bring them together to look at culture and identity include Corrymeela's Facing History and Ourselves. It explores with young people from different backgrounds their culture and identity, and the aim is, perhaps, to tease out some of their —

Mr McCausland: My point is about coming together on the basis of equality, whereby children have equal strength and affirmation in a school. Not so long ago, I picked up on a comment by an American academic, Professor Elshtain from the University of Chicago:

She said that in a different context, but, if the curriculum in the school system does not embrace the culture, it is not affirming it and saying that it is excellent, worthy and necessary. However, if another school reflects culture in a, b and c activity, that is seen as excellent, worthy and necessary because it is in the classroom. The former' s culture is not because it is kept outside the school.

Mr Osborne: The CRC acknowledges daily cultural expression across the community in all sorts of ways. We support a huge amount of work in the Protestant/unionist side of the community, the Catholic/nationalist/republican side of the community, the black and minority ethnic (BME) sector and many other sectors.

The CRC, in its funding role, for example, would not get into the youth or school side of things. Nevertheless, the principle of approaching things on the basis of equality and making sure that we support good cultural expression is part of the future for this society because we need to value all sorts of cultural expression from all sides of the community.

The issue from the schools perspective, if I am taking you up right, Nelson, is not about disadvantaging one side of the community. In other words, if you are saying that there is a very positive expression of culture on the Catholic-maintained side, that is fine. What you are asking is whether that is reflected on the other side of the community divide in its schooling system.

Mr McCausland: It should be right for all sectors.

Mr Osborne: Sure, and we do not disagree with that principle. That is absolutely right. It may be that the conversation needed on the Protestant/unionist side of the community divide on culture and how that is reflected in schools is something that we want to engage in. If that is not being done adequately or is not reflected in that side of the community' s learning about its cultural identity, we need to engage with that. Our view is that cultural expression needs to be part of the learning. Therefore, the school sector needs to reflect on that, as do the organisations outside it,

Mr McCausland: I will certainly pass that on. I am sure that there are folks who will take up that offer.

I will turn to the Equality Commission for a moment. I read through the document, and there was no mention of equality in accessing the cultural rights of the child. Maybe there is a crossover between you and the Human Rights Commission on that. Maybe the commission is meant to look after that as part of its human rights remit and implement it equally. Maybe there is no discrimination. Is there a crossover?

Dr Wardlow: Our response was on the nature of sharing and shared education, and how that is maximised. We talked about the deep sharing and so on. I do not think that we touched on Catholic culture as opposed to Protestant culture in this sense.

If you are asking me in broad terms, I am old enough to remember single identity work when Brian Mawhinney introduced it. The idea was that you prepare your community to understand itself before engaging with the other. Then, you went into some cross-community contact and, eventually, sharing. There was a sort of virtuous circle, and that was how you did it.

We now know that there are lots of different ways to do it, but research shows that people need to be reasonably aware of who and what they are before they engage with the other — absolutely. As we said at the outset, we are not pointing out all the areas of research; we are simply saying that, within our gift, we will talk about what we feel is important.

There is a huge amount of work out there. It seems to me that most important is this flimsy word "ethos", which I have researched. The closest that I found to a definition is "It is the way we do things round here".

In a school or a joint school and talking about shared schools, the person who develops and controls the ethos — research on ethos shows that it is not fixed — is the head teacher. Head teachers come and go, so the ethos of a school can change. Those in charge of a school have a trickle-down effect on the ethos. The research is clear on that. How, then, do kids engage with culture in school? It is in the curriculum and the extracurricular activities. More important, it is in what we in research call the hidden curriculum. It is what people say and do — it is how we do stuff around here.

Now, you cannot write that down, but there is a huge amount of research around how people feel that generous gestures are being made towards them. I think that teachers need learning in that. They tell us that constantly, saying, "I do not know how Catholics/Protestants think". Protestant teachers will often say that the Catholic culture is very visible. In the integrated system, when a school was transforming, it was seen as a lot of Catholic imagery coming in, and there is almost a Protestant deficit created.

The research says that, when schools address that and ask what it is that defines Protestantism, there is huge amount of curricular material around. It is everything from engaging with the war to going to graveyards and bringing people in from the outside. For me, it is out there, and it is extremely important, whether or not it is directly an equality matter. I do not see that it falls under our gamut, but that does not mean that we are avoiding it. I think that it would be wrong if there was some imbalance in sharing and it was seen to be all one side. Therefore, we are saying that the training and resources need to be there. Youth work and the NGOs from the outside can give a huge amount of help on that, and young people can actually be allowed to experiment and understand what it is. As a four-year-old, do I really know my culture? As a 16-year-old, I begin to develop that. So, absolutely, Nelson, it is an important thing.

Mr McCausland: In deference to and respect for the Chair, I will stop there. I do think that it is quite often the elephant in the room, and the fact that it did not appear significantly or has not been looked into yet causes concern, but we will follow it up and come back to you on that.

Dr Wardlow: Likewise, if I undertake anything, I will be back in touch with you, Nelson, and will make sure that that goes back to our commission as well.

Mr Osborne: From our perspective, we want to understand better the point that is being made. If we can engage in any positive way, that is what we will do.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Mrs Overend for a final question.

Mrs Overend: I have cut my questions right down to one. My apologies for not being here at the beginning, but I will be sure to read the Hansard report for all the information. Have you had a chance, or do you propose, to examine the independent review of home-to-school transport? I am sure that you will find that interesting. What is your view on achieving more integration if children are forced to go their nearest school? It could mean that we would have more single-identity schools rather than fewer.

Dr Wardlow: It is a very simple answer. It is something that we will look at and respond to, because there are issues about equality of access and equality of opportunity, inevitably. At the minute, you can choose to go beyond two or three miles and pay for the transport, unless there is no school of your type within that area. We know that and we know that there are restrictions, but does that have the law of unintended consequence somewhere down the line? Those are the things that we need to look at.

Mr Osborne: I think that we would mirror that answer. It probably will be part of the response

Ms McGlade: We are also interested in sharing across schools, and the issue of transport has to be accommodated if we are genuine about enabling that to happen.

Dr Wardlow: There were some issues in the learning partnerships when they were set up. Young people who moved for a day to school B were showing their bus pass and the driver was saying that they were not coming from that school, or things ran beyond 4.00 pm and the bus driver said that it was only valid until then. So, there is also an issue about whether schools should have the budget in their own hands. There are other ways of looking at it that need to be examined, but we will certainly look at whether there is any equality impact in terms of the public sector duties that fall on the boards and whoever provides the transport. Would it have that law of unintended consequences? Indeed, it may have a very direct consequence, particularly if you think of rurality and some of the urban areas.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Thank you very much. That was a very long session. Thank you for your contributions. I am quite confident that we will meet again. Thank you very much.