A supporter of integrated education has claimed the Catholic Church is one of
the major obstacles in reform.
Baroness May Blood said: "For two-and-a-half years I have tried to get a
meeting with the bishops and the cardinal and I have been told on every
occasion to get lost."
The campaign chair of the Integrated Education Fund (IEF) made the comments
yesterday
at a civic discussion on education reform.
Baroness Blood said: "We have no problem with the grammar sector
or Catholic schools, we are not saying every school should be integrated,
that's absolute nonsense but parents should have a choice."
The Catholic Church also come under fire from delegates including one woman
who claimed a parish priest had warned her daughter about the "dangers"
of sending her son to an integrated school while another told how the parish
priest had "never set foot over the door" of the integrated school
his children attended.
However, Michelle Marken, the former principal of St Joseph's College, Belfast
defended the Catholic Church and said she did not believe it was unwilling
to have a discussion about integrating education.
Yesterday's debate on moving towards a shared education system, which was
hosted by NICVA and the IEF, comes on the back of a MORI poll which
indicated 88% of parents in Northern Ireland would send their child to an
integrated school.
The Rev Trevor Gribben from the Transferors' Representative Council, which
represents the Protestant churches, said: "The danger is that by
pushing the integrated model we put people off. I would advocate more
collaboration, more sharing as opposed to having a revolution. We want to
create space for those who feel most threatened.
"The three transferring churches (Presbyterian, Church of Ireland and
Methodist) want to continue in partnership but the Catholic Church has not
transferred its schools so it clearly threatens them more than it threatens
us."
And the Rev Gribben stated the move to an integrated system would diminish the
churches control over the education sector.
"As we move to one shared education sector all the sacred cows will have
to go in both the controlled and maintained sector. It means a lot of things
will have to die and perhaps the churches will not have the influence they
once had," he said.
Mark Langhammer, director of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL)
said "the integrated education movement now stands at 6%, the challenge
is to move to 20/30/40%" but he added "no one is going to hand
this to us, the integrated movement needs to fight like alley cats".
All the political representatives agreed that parents should have a choice on
where their children are educated.
Sinn Fein education spokesman Daithi McKay said: "Parents should still
have a choice on how their children are educated and if that's integrated
that should be encouraged."