AQW 30423/22-27

Mr Nick Mathison
Alliance Party
Strangford

Tabled Date: 05/09/2025
Answered On Date: 12/09/2025
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Education to detail any work that has been undertaken regarding provision for a joint scheme of management for schools.

Answer:

Clear guidance, developed in consultation with the Catholic Trustees and Transferors and circulated to all schools, is currently available on the mechanism through which jointly managed schools may be established (DE Circular 2015/15).

The establishment of a new jointly managed school is required through the Development Proposal process and only where there is a clear desire to do so on the part of the prospective constituent schools and the communities they serve. Any proposed school – jointly managed or otherwise - must be viable in the longer term when assessed against the criteria set out in DE’s Sustainable Schools Policy.

My Department would welcome proposals for jointly managed schools, however no such proposal has been brought forward to date.

No joint scheme of management has been developed in respect of such schools.