Adjournment – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 5:00 pm on 14 January 2025.
In conjunction with the Business Committee, the Speaker has given leave to Paula Bradshaw to raise the matter of integrated education provision in South Belfast. Paula, you will have up to 15 minutes. Over to you.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I will not need anywhere near that, but I appreciate Members taking the time to join me in the Chamber this evening to debate the topic. I want to focus specifically on the issues facing integrated education provision in South Belfast. I do not believe that, during this debate, we need to rehearse what recently happened with the schools in North Down. MLAs can return to that at another time.
It is important to emphasise that successive surveys reinforce that integrated education provision is inadequate in Northern Ireland and specifically in South Belfast. To be clear, no one in my party is talking about enforcing integrated education. Many parents choose state or maintained schools for very good reasons. Indeed, I was among them in sending my children to Belfast Royal Academy, for example. What we are talking about, however, is parental choice. When it comes to parental choice, the availability of integrated education provision in South Belfast falls short.
For example, Lagan College, which is admittedly based just over the constituency boundary in Strangford, has a huge intake from South Belfast and, every year, has nearly double the applications for admissions than it has places to fill. That has been the case for many years, yet progress on securing a site for the proposed 600-pupil, mid Down integrated post-primary school is still to be publicly announced. We need to see a firm commitment from the Minister that he will proceed at pace when that site is found.
Back in 2019, the Community Conversation report, which was produced by the Integrated Education Fund and Ulster University and focused on the Castlereagh and Carryduff areas, stated:
"it was considered that an additional Integrated post-primary school could help meet the demand for post-primary places in that sector."
Six years on, I note that the last update on that from the Minister was in September 2024 to my party colleague Nick Mathison, in which he stated:
"Land and Property Services have conducted a site search and have identified two sites. My department has been working with stakeholders to determine the scope of works for the appointment of an Integrated Consultant Team (ICT) for the project. On completion of this work, the procurement process will be initiated."
I hope that the Education Minister can provide us with an update on that today and indicate whether, given the ongoing growth of the population in that area of South Belfast and the fact that 250 pupils will be joining from Blackwater Integrated College, he believes that a 600-place school will be big enough to meet current and future demand.
Moving to primary-school provision, I should note that pressure for primary-school places has been eased to a small degree through the triumph last year of the conversion of Cairnshill Primary School to integrated status. The principal and the school community worked so hard to achieve that for the parents who voted for the conversion in such high numbers.
Not to underestimate those efforts, I highlight the challenges that the principal and the school community at Forge Integrated Primary School have faced and continue to face in making their move from the current site on Carolan Road, which is adjacent to Wellington College. As a side note, I mention the proximity of the two schools because I am sure that Wellington College would, no doubt, be able to expand with minimal disruption onto the Forge Integrated Primary School site, if and when it becomes available, thereby addressing some of its own challenges with the huge demand on its confined site.
Turning back to Forge Integrated Primary School, in 2016, it was announced that the school would take forward plans to relocate to the former Knockbreda High School site along the Knock dual carriageway. Since that time, the principal has tried to keep the project moving forward at pace, despite facing many challenges along the way, not least the COVID pandemic. The two most enduring issues are the significant delay in getting planning permission, which is moving into its fifth year, and the challenge of ensuring that all aspects are ready for the development so that, when the opportunity for funding arises, everything is in place. It should be noted that it is envisaged that the new build will include an autism support centre for Key Stage 1 pupils and a general learning support centre for those at Key Stage 2. No one in the Chamber will fail to appreciate how much demand there is for those new learning units in South Belfast.
Minister, I appreciate your coming to the Chamber. I would like to know what support you can and will provide to Forge Integrated Primary School to progress its proposals. I hope that you can help it to address long-standing queries with DFI Roads and help the scheme to progress at the pace that it deserves after eight years.
All other Members who are called to speak will have up to seven minutes.
I thank Paula for securing this important debate and for discussing the issue in South Belfast. It is clear that forward planning to meet school pressures, especially for nursery and primary places, is essential. We recognise that challenge in an area such as South Belfast. Our schools do an excellent job despite the pressures and challenges that they face.
We know that all schools should be open, inclusive and safe environments in which all our children can learn, develop and enhance their outcomes, no matter their religion, social class, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Sinn Féin worked with other parties in the Assembly on, and supported the introduction of, the Integrated Education Act in the previous mandate. The Good Friday Agreement places a duty on the Department of Education to "encourage and facilitate" integrated education, That has been enhanced to include a duty to:
"support the development of integrated education".
Sinn Féin is a champion of integrated education, but, when we look at the issue, we often find that the main focus here is on religion and religious integration, be that through the media, debates, campaigns or, indeed, endorsements.
I understand the need to look at integration in the context of the history and legacy of the conflict and to look at the divisions that resulted from it. Those divisions had an impact on our communities and our people, resulting in children being taught in different schools on the basis of their religion.
If we are looking to have true integration and better outcomes for our children and young people, which is what we really want, we need to acknowledge that it is on the basis of social class that people are consistently failed and segregated. Indeed, all the education outcomes show that those who come from a certain social class are impacted on more than those from other social classes. That is demonstrated in an area such as South Belfast, which is stratified on the basis of social class. Integrated education has to be a key component of the types of schools, the type of society and the types of outcomes that we want for all our children: all of them, not just some.
That has been reflected in wider debates in the Chamber that have looked at division resulting from conflict. It is easy to look at issues where there are hardened interfaces, but it is often about invisible barriers related to social class, which depend on where a person lives. We hear about those barriers when pressures are debated in the Chamber, whether they are pressures in our justice system, our healthcare system or our education system. Segregation by social class is factored into all those areas of work and impacts on citizens from lower social classes or working-class backgrounds. If we are serious about integrated education providing better outcomes, we need to look at that. There is no doubt that the biggest division in our education system and in outcomes from it is along the lines of social class.
I want to work with other parties to advance integrated education, as we did in the previous mandate. I want to see more support for it. We have excellent integrated schools in South Belfast. When one meets their boards of governors and their young people, as many of us South Belfast MLAs did last year when we got together in some of the primary-school settings, one sees the drive of teachers, boards of governors, parents and, importantly, children. We want to enhance integrated education, but, in doing so, we need to make sure that it is integration in its truest form, which should include children from working-class backgrounds.
I am happy that the topic has been brought to the House for debate, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister says. His contribution will hopefully expand on the subject of integration to look at social class, at working-class communities and at children. I hope that we can continue to work together to deliver better education outcomes for all our children and young people.
I am pleased that Paula Bradshaw secured the Adjournment debate and hope that we hear from the Minister about what he is doing to support integrated education in South Belfast. Like Paula, I am not going to use the debate as an opportunity to relitigate some of what we robustly debated yesterday and in the days before that. I am sure that we will have the opportunity to do so again in the days and weeks ahead.
I declare an interest as a parent of a child who attends an integrated primary school in South Belfast. Indeed, it is one of the primary schools that a Member mentioned in an earlier contribution: Forge Integrated Primary School. There is a specific issue at that school, to which I hope that the Minister will be able to speak. Unfortunately, I may not be able to be present for the Minister's remarks, because I have a pressing engagement elsewhere that involves said pupil of that primary school.
The school had been expecting funding under the Fresh Start Agreement. Again, I will not relitigate this — it is an Adjournment debate, and things are a little less heated at this time of day — but, for one reason or another, it no longer has that Fresh Start funding. We have discussed the matter in the Chamber before. The school has been placed on the list of schools to receive future capital funding, but it has no certainty over when the money to build a new school will be received. It was expecting new money. Indeed, it has been told for a decade to expect it.
As Paula Bradshaw said, the school also faces an outstanding challenge to secure a site. It has an agreement to move to the old Knockbreda High School site on the A55 dual carriageway, but there are outstanding issues with traffic management and, frankly, with DFI getting on with doing what it needs to do. There is an obvious solution, which should happen sooner rather than later, because that school community has been waiting for nearly a decade for the matter to be progressed. That is one issue.
More generally, integrated education provision is a hopeful and positive story in South Belfast. I am in a relatively unique position in this place: I was away for 20 years from this island and the North before coming back. While I was away, I was one of those people who bloviated and had lots of opinions about Northern Ireland and what was wrong with it. One of the things that people often talk about is our education system and the fact that kids are educated separately. There is context for that, and there are reasons and complications. However, as I said when we passed what became the Integrated Education Act, it is not normal that our education system is segregated as it is. It just is not normal. I will never be coaxed into saying that it is normal for our kids to be educated separately, as they are. Deirdre Hargey is right: there is a huge challenge around social class that I will go on to talk about. Those things intersect, which is really critical. However, we cannot kid ourselves about the role that a fundamentally segregated education system has in reinforcing the sense of abnormality between broad communal identities in Northern Ireland. It just does.
I thank the Member for giving way. Perhaps he could provide a bit more clarity. By "segregation", does he mean different sectors? As was noted in the debate yesterday — it is appropriate that we put it on record again today — so many of our schools from those different sectors have naturally integrated. In fact, as was pointed out by the Minister yesterday, they have integrated in more elaborate ways than some schools in the integrated sector.
I am really glad that I gave way, because the Member is right. These debates get into the mud so quickly, and we end up looking as though we are virtue-signalling, or we offend people, or we talk around the issues. Holy Rosary Primary School is an amazing maintained primary school near me with lots of kids on free school meals and lots of kids from ethnic minority backgrounds for whom English is not their first language. It would be ridiculous if I were to say that that Catholic maintained primary somehow needs to feel guilty about the fact that it is not formally integrated. Rosetta Primary School is an amazing controlled primary that has a huge number of kids on free school meals. Talking about the aspiration to have a less divided education system should in no way be read as criticism of those schools, and, frankly, things become a bit sterile when we get into that territory. However, I think that you can acknowledge that brilliant Catholic maintained, controlled, integrated and Irish-medium schools exist while also saying, "It's not a good thing that so many of our kids are educated separately and come to think of one another as different". I am afraid that that is a reality. It is a reality that crystallises when you leave this place and you realise how, bluntly, abnormal it is. That is just a simple truth.
South Belfast has amazing schools in all sectors, but there is huge demand and growing support for integrated education. Cairnshill Primary School began the transformation process last year. Harding Memorial Integrated Primary School also underwent that transformation process. Those are all good things. There is a particular pressure when it comes to post-primary schools. As has been said, Lagan College is an amazing school; it is the exemplar in many ways, because it was set up 40-odd years ago. I think that our former colleague Clare Bailey attended Lagan in the first intake. However, Lagan is oversubscribed; there are just not enough post-primary places. There are, of course, other amazing schools in other sectors in that part of the city, but many parents want to choose an integrated option at post-primary. At the minute, Lagan is the only option in the south-east of the city. Malone Integrated College is a great school in the south-west of the city. A significant amount of its intake will be from west Belfast. Those are two great schools at either end of the constituency, but, as was said by Paula Bradshaw, in the Carryduff/Castlereagh area, there is definitely capacity for an additional school. Hopefully, mid Down integrated college will relieve some of that pressure, but we need clarity about when that school will be built and completed.
There is a huge positive level of support for integrated education in South Belfast. We are proud in South Belfast of our diversity in terms of the traditional identities in the North but also of newcomer communities, whom we welcome, celebrate and integrate. Deirdre Hargey was right to say that we sometimes slightly miss a trick when we talk about how our education system is divided along two fundamental axes. One is along traditional communal identities, which is in no way to diminish or criticise the amazing schools that we have in the controlled and maintained sectors. However, the system is too divided: too many kids are educated separately in that context. It is also too divided by class. We fail working-class kids at a heroic level in this society. Every serious educationalist who has looked at it has recognised that the kind of selection that we do at 11 simply fails working-class kids. I slightly got dragged off into that debate, but it is a critical one.
There has been huge progress on integrated education in South Belfast. We would like to see more, so it would be helpful to hear more from the Minister about what is happening at Forge — I have declared my interest — and at mid Down, which will be critical to taking some of the post-primary pressure off Lagan.
Thank you, Matthew. You had an extra minute, but I did not know when to say it as we went through.
I thank my constituency colleague Paula Bradshaw for securing today's Adjournment debate. It is really good to have the Minister here. Thank you.
South Belfast is one of the most diverse constituencies in Northern Ireland, and it is an honour to represent that community. In South Belfast, we know that our diversity is our strength, and that is why we have always had such a special and close connection with the integrated education movement. As colleagues have outlined, we have so many wonderful integrated schools, including Cairnshill Integrated Primary School, which recently underwent the transformation process, and Forge Integrated Primary School, which was founded in 1985. Lagan College, the first integrated school, is technically not in South Belfast, but we like to claim it as our own, and many families and children from South Belfast are part of that school community. We have brilliant primary schools, including Harding Memorial and Cranmore, and we also like to claim Lough View as ours. We have Malone Integrated College at post-primary. It is important to recognise other schools that are not in the constituency but will be with the boundary changes, including Millennium Integrated Primary School and others further afield.
You can recognise the excellent work that is being done by schools across the board and still have policy aspirations. In Alliance, we have always believed that children should be educated through a single integrated education system that delivers equality of opportunity so that every child can develop their unique ability, personality and potential. We have always championed integrated education as a core part of our party DNA and as part of that pathway towards creating a more united community. You can talk about integration and diversity within schools, but what is different about integrated schools is the ethos that is at the core of it, and that is something that we really want to champion. There is no doubt that the integrated —.
Will the Member give way?
Yes, go ahead.
It is a genuine question, and it probably comes out of some of the discussions that have been taking place this week. It is something that I have not grasped yet. What exactly is it about the ethos of integrated schools that is explicitly different from our other schools? Often, when you ask the question, you genuinely hear the talk about tolerance, encouraging understanding and respect for the other. That is something that, I feel, I got in my school and that other schools do. It is not just about saying that there are wonderful schools in every sector, because I think that we all think that, in the same way as I believe that there are wonderful integrated schools. That is something that the integrated sector has to grapple with in defining itself. It is not about a certain number of people from the traditional Protestant and Catholic —.
David, it is an intervention, not a speech. If you wish to be added to the speaking list, we will have no difficulty whatever.
No, I am OK. Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Kate, you have an extra minute.
I understand what you say. I am trying to think of the best way to answer it. I would love for you to come with me to Lagan some time and meet some of the pupils. They will talk to you about how everything is intentional. The integration ethos is through everything. I really love how — I think that it was in the last local government election — every party had a candidate running who had gone to Lagan. It is not homogenous. People are proud and confident in their identities, and having difference is not a conflict. They are just so at ease with difference there.
Yes, we want to create a more tolerant, inclusive society, but, when you speak to children who have been to integrated schools, you see that they champion integrated education better than I ever could. I did not. I went to Methody, which was a very mixed school, and I was very privileged to do so and had lots of great opportunities. I had never even heard of Gaelic football until I met my husband. There are so many things that are part of our society that you are just not exposed to. We are in a divided society, but, in integrated schools, integration is so intentional. That really is the difference.
So much progress has been made in the landscape. There has been a huge surge in the number of schools seeking to transform, which is wonderful, with a number of successful parental ballots. It is no secret that we were disappointed by the recent decisions, but the rise of 8% in pupils in Northern Ireland attending an integrated school in Northern Ireland is positive. Twenty-six years on from the Good Friday Agreement, is that progress as fast as we want it to be? I do not think so.
In the previous mandate, my colleague Kellie Armstrong brought forward the Integrated Education Bill, which is now an Act. That was welcome and a lot of it was really positive, but demand and support consistently outstrip supply. We need to do more. I would like to hear more from the Minister about how he is taking forward certain sections of the Integrated Education Act. Section 5 places a duty on the Department with regard to:
"identifying, assessing, monitoring and aiming to meet the demand for the provision of integrated education".
What is happening with that in South Belfast? How is the Minister aiming to identify and assess demand in South Belfast when polling consistently shows that a majority of parents are in favour of integrated education? What mechanism is being taken forward to assess the demand? I also want to ask the Minister when he intends to publish the next report on integrated education, which is required by section 10 of the Act. Those are not just things that would be nice; they are in the Act, and we would like to know the answers. Constituents in South Belfast have a real interest in the issue, and, as constituency MLAs, we have been getting so many emails about what is happening.
Future development has been mentioned, but the community-led campaign for the development of mid Down integrated college — I am out of breath. I am 30 weeks pregnant, and I cannot breathe
[Laughter.]
I will try to slow down. The community-led campaign for the development of mid-Down integrated college has been really inspiring, and I have met the people who are driving it. It will be an invaluable resource in helping to meet the growing demand for integrated education in South Belfast and beyond. It is only through developing a school of that size and scale that we will even come close to meeting the demands for integrated education from parents in South Belfast. Any information or reassurance that we can get about that and, as mentioned, the speeding up of the development at Forge Integrated Primary School would be really welcome.
We are really proud of our education provision in South Belfast, but we know that parents would like to see more provision of integrated education. We will continue to champion it.
Members, I think that we all agree that children deserve a fair chance to go to school and to learn and develop the skills that they need in order to thrive into adult life. It is a priority that all children and young people in Northern Ireland are educated together. The journey towards understanding and shared purpose begins within the walls of the school classroom. I pay tribute to all the schools in South Belfast that provide an inclusive approach where all the children and young people in their care are valued and accepted on a daily basis. I also thank the Member for securing the Adjournment debate.
As a party, we support the education of our children and young people together in inclusive and diverse schools. We believe that that can be done best through a single education system that fosters an environment where children of different backgrounds and beliefs learn and grow together and develop a sense of community that transcends division. As the Member who spoke previously rightly said, our diversity is not a barrier but is our strength. It is an advantage that enriches young people's lives in the society that they will one day lead.
For years, our education system has operated in silos, reflecting historical divisions that have left deep scars on our society. Schools should be open to all, welcoming children and young people of all faiths and none, richly diverse and inclusive and reflective of and embedded in the communities that they serve.
When asked what the most important element in selecting schools for their children is, parents and guardians consistently respond by stating, "A good standard of education". Members, together we can build a future where our children are educated not just to pass exams but to understand and value one another and rise as leaders of a peaceful and inclusive society. It is therefore vital that all schools are supported to serve their local communities and be the best schools that they can be.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, and I thank my party colleague for securing an Adjournment debate on the topic.
My colleagues and others have spoken in detail about the South Belfast-specific issues. I do not pretend that I will be able to add much to that. However, at the outset, I want to put on record my support for growing integrated education in South Belfast. I hope that we will get a positive update from the Minister in that regard. As it turns out, a few issues in the debate have crossed over into my constituency. I am very pleased about that. Yes, we house Lagan College in Strangford. Maybe not everyone is aware of that, so I will get that on to the record. There has also been progress on mid Down integrated college. I am very hopeful of hearing a positive update on that from the Minister. We know that two sites have been identified. Wherever the college ends up, I know that it will certainly serve many of my constituents as well. I want to put on record my appreciation for the unbelievable levels of work, vision and ambition of those parents to get that school established. That is no small feat. They deserve immense credit. I look forward to that developing. Recently, I visited Blackwater Integrated College on a couple of occasions. That school is bursting at the seams. It certainly cannot wait much longer for the school project to be developed.
Much has been said about integrated education in the past week. I hope that the debate can be a positive reset and that we can get the discussion on to a more positive footing. It is really important that, whatever we think of the decisions that have been taken over the past week, in the context of the debate, we remind ourselves of the three really important duties that the Minister has in that space, which have been mentioned already. They are:
"to encourage, facilitate and support integrated education"; to
"take steps to ascertain the demand for integrated education", and
"to aim to meet the demand".
There may well be differences of opinion about what an integrated school is, particularly about that notion of "reasonable numbers", but, this evening, we are talking about whether the provision that is available in South Belfast meets the demand. The Integrated Education Act is clear about that. I am looking forward to a response from the Minister that is mindful of the context of those duties. Hopefully, we can move away from some of the party political stuff and get on to the pragmatic discussion of how those legal and statutory duties can be met.
I want to pick up on a couple of other issues that were mentioned in the debate. I will put it out there: I am looking forward to hearing what comes from the Minister on growing the provision in South Belfast. David Brooks asked what it is that makes a school integrated. People will have different views on that. The Integrated Education Act provides a clear definition of that. For me, the critical bit is the intentionality. Across my constituency, there are schools that are open, welcoming and diverse spaces. I am not here to criticise any sector in the education system. Every single principal whom I meet, every school that I visit and the teachers in them work at absolute capacity to deliver the very best education in the most nurturing environment that they can for the children in their care. We need to get behind the integrated sector and support its growth — not to the detriment of anybody else — because of that intentionality of ethos; the intentionality of bringing people together from different community backgrounds, different faith perspectives and different socio-economic backgrounds; and the intentional attempt to bring those children together in the classroom.
I thank the Member for giving way. I will follow on from Mr Brooks's point about what is special about ethos. I could apply the ethos that Ms Nicholl described to many schools in my constituency. In fact, many parents choose those schools on the basis of the ethos that they provide. Does the Member accept that what he considers to be unique and special about the ethos of an integrated school is applicable to schools across many different sectors and that their representation proves that?
I agree, up to a point, that schools in many sectors provide great examples of a really diverse offering and a welcoming school community. I do not think that anybody is suggesting that any school is closing its doors to anybody. I am not suggesting that. However, the next level of integration is the explicit intentionality. For me, that is the key point.
I will speak to some of the issues that Mr Buckley raised earlier about the diversity that exists in the school system. In many scenarios, there is still segregation in the majority of our schools. I am not saying that that is intentional. I am not suggesting that anybody is trying to segregate the system. I am saying that that is the reality. Some examples of real mixing that were highlighted in debates this week do not represent the norm. The academic research that Ulster University produced says that 93% of children still attend schools that are largely segregated along religious lines. That is a pretty big number. For 69% of our schools, the research uses the phrase "strongly segregated", and 47% are almost entirely segregated. That is not to suggest that anybody is trying to engineer a system that segregates children. It is a product of our history and of our conflict, but that does not mean that we should not set our ambitions higher to do more to address that segregation.
I thank the Member for giving way. We are now having an important and respectful debate on the subject, but, going by that theory and the statistics that he has quoted on sectors, segregation and traditional communities, many of the integrated schools that the Minister referred to yesterday would fall into those categories. They are segregated, because they do not demonstrate the diverse community that the Member claims should be the case.
The Member has an extra minute.
I appreciate that time could beat me here, but I understand the point. The key point that follows from it is that, when you make the decision to transform into an integrated school, you are making a decision to go on a journey to try to address that segregation. There is an intentional decision that recognises that and says, "We do not want to continue in that segregated context".
We need to move beyond headcounts. It is not about counting numbers in different communities. It is about creating school environments that have intentionality when it comes to creating diverse and inclusive spaces. Again, I am not here to bash any sectors, but I believe that integrated education plays a critical role in that process.
I wanted to speak on those points, and perhaps an Adjournment debate gives us an opportunity to have a debate in a different context, which takes some of the heat out of it, but that is not to take away from my colleague's debate. We are here to hear about what is going on in South Belfast, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that.
Over to you, Minister, for a chilled response; taking the heat out of it. You have up to 10 minutes.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I thank the Member for South Belfast Paula Bradshaw for securing the Adjournment debate and for setting its tone. It was refreshing to have the conversations that we have engaged in outside the heat of yesterday around specific decisions. Mr O'Toole has left the Chamber, but I was reminded of Paul and the conversion on the road to Damascus — it was remarkable after yesterday's commentary — because I agree with him. There are amazing Catholic maintained schools. There are amazing controlled schools. I only wish that some Members had said that yesterday in articulating their point about integrated schools. The debate today has been much more nuanced. I want to address the issues in South Belfast, and, if time permits, I will pick up the wider issues that some colleagues have touched on of integration and how my Department is developing that.
Let me turn to South Belfast. As colleagues have mentioned, there are six integrated schools in South Belfast: Cranmore Integrated Primary and Nursery School, Forge Integrated Primary School, Harding Memorial Integrated Primary School, Lough View Integrated Primary and Nursery School and, most recently, Cairnshill Primary School, as well as Malone Integrated College. At the outset, I ask Members to join me, as they have done, in paying tribute to each of those schools and to integrated schools across Northern Ireland for their work in educating children and young people from different backgrounds together.
In June 2024, I was delighted to approve the transformation of Cairnshill Primary School, creating over 500 new integrated places and increasing the number of integrated primary-school places in South Belfast by no less than 47%. No one mentioned it yesterday — that is the nature of the to and fro of politics — but I approved that at Cairnshill. I went to the school and met the principal. It is the only school that was found to have reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), and it has had to go through the pretty traumatic experience of dealing with that. In that meeting, I was able to give the board of governors and the principal the news that I had approved the transformation of the school to integrated status.
Demand for integrated education is a complex issue, and we see that in South Belfast. For September 2024, there were 180 applications for 165 places in the four existing integrated primary schools, but only one school, Lough View Integrated Primary School, was oversubscribed. The transformation of Cairnshill Primary School will create another 83 integrated primary-school places annually to help meet the unmet need. However, Lough View Integrated Primary School may, of course, remain oversubscribed. At post-primary level, there are places available at Malone College, where, I note, there were 129 first-preference applications for 130 places this year, indicating that demand is in line with supply.
There are also integrated schools outside South Belfast that enrolled significant numbers of pupils from that constituency. Notably, Lagan College, which the Chair of the Education Committee has claimed authority on, sits in the Strangford constituency but has a large catchment area, including South Belfast, and it is regularly oversubscribed. The approval of the new mid Down integrated post-primary school aims to address that unmet demand for integrated education.
We all know that parents make school choices for a range of issues. It is not simply about a choice of sector — popular high-performing schools with strong reputations in all sectors are frequently oversubscribed. Demand for a particular school does not necessarily equate to demand for a particular school management type. My Department is, therefore, committed to gathering more comprehensive evidence that will inform a detailed report on the demand for integrated education, which will provide the foundation for informed decision-making.
Before I turn to the wider issue of developing integrated education, I will mention some of the accommodation issues for integrated schools in the South Belfast constituency. In recent months, as I touched on earlier, we have addressed the issue of RAAC at Cairnshill Primary School. I am delighted that all the required works have been completed. Other integrated schools in the constituency have also been prioritised for investment.
Following the removal of Fresh Start funding by the UK Government, I demonstrated my commitment to Forge Integrated Primary School. Mr O'Toole is not here. He remarked yesterday that I had taken money away, characterising unfairly the outworkings of the UK Government's decisions on Fresh Start. I demonstrated my commitment to Forge Integrated Primary School and other integrated schools by moving them into my Department's major capital works programme. The project for Forge Integrated Primary School aims to provide a new-build school at the former Knockbreda High School site in Belfast. The design of the new building is progressing, and discussions are ongoing with Belfast City Council as part of the pre-application process for submission of a planning application.
Last year, I was pleased to lift the pause on planning for seven of the highest-priority new-build projects announced in 2022, including the project for Malone Integrated College. The appointment of a design team for that project is now almost complete. The integrated estate has benefited from and will continue to receive significant levels of capital investment.
I know that Members are particularly concerned about the development of the mid Down integrated post-primary school. My officials are taking a proactive approach to that school since approval of the development proposal late last year, and have been liaising with NICIE and the mid Down steering group. A site search has been completed by LPS, and two potential sites, including one in the Carryduff area, have been identified. A project brief is being prepared for the appointment of an integrated consultancy team to complete feasibility studies on the suitability of those two sites. My Department has never before led the capital development of a newly established integrated school, as schools previously had to demonstrate capital viability before receiving investment. Members have raised other issues specifically about those schools, and I will come back to Members on those in more detail.
I turn to the wider approach to developing integrated education. Over the past 10 months, I have been out visiting schools of all types and from all sectors, in South Belfast and across Northern Ireland, and witnessed the excellent work that they are doing. In recent months, I visited Methodist College in South Belfast. Whilst it is not designated as an integrated school, it educates a diverse range of children from a wide range of community and ethnic backgrounds. Such visits have cemented my view that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to delivering a high-quality education. Education in Northern Ireland is based on the guiding principle, set out in law, that children are educated, as far as possible, in accordance with the wishes of their parents. Diversity and choice are a strength of our education system, not a weakness. Every child, every school and every sector are important and valued in our education system. They all have key roles in building a reconciled and shared society, which is a key priority for me and our Government.
Integrated education is designed to provide opportunities for children and young people from different community backgrounds to learn together, and it has an important role to play in that process. The number of pupils accessing integrated education continues to grow. Over 27,000 pupils are now enrolled in 73 integrated schools. That represents over 6,000 additional places in the past 10 years. I assure Members that I take my Department's statutory duty to "encourage, facilitate and support" integrated education extremely seriously. My officials are developing an updated integrated education strategy and action plan in collaboration with key stakeholders. A consultation on the updated strategy and action plan will be launched in the coming weeks. The updated strategy and action plan will set out a clear vision to create a vibrant and supported network of sustainable integrated schools, providing high-quality integrated education to children and young people. The vision is underpinned by five strategic aims, which are, in turn, supported by clear targets and actions.
However, there is also an important question to ask about the nature and direction of integrated education and its USP in the changing world of the 21st century. The current legislation is clear: integrated education includes "the education together" of "reasonable numbers" of Catholics and Protestants. That has been a defining legal and, indeed, core principle and feature of the integrated movement since its inception. The aspiration for the main communities to each comprise 40% of an integrated school's enrolment is enshrined in the NICIE statement of principles. Those numerical targets are not arbitrary; they are rooted in a commitment to equality of status between communities within the integrated school. In keeping with the equality criterion and contact theory, that helps to create the conditions for positive interaction and an improvement in intergroup relationships.
I am conscious of the time. Ten minutes is the limit.
Ten minutes, yes.
OK. There are some other points that I was going to make but, for the purposes of —.
I will give you an extra minute.
I appreciate that. Thank you. Hopefully that will enable me to conclude my remarks.
Integrated education has achieved a balance of religious backgrounds at system level and continues to do so, yet increasingly there are new questions to be answered. If a school has overwhelmingly drawn pupils from one community, what should be the considerations for its transformation to an integrated school? If integration is now to be primarily about ethos and not about bringing two communities together, what does that mean in the current law? In turn, what does that mean for an integrated school that has children who are largely from one community background? Those are important questions for us to consider. That is why the Department is committed to conducting a wider review of the operation of the transformation process to ensure that it is working effectively.
I thank Members for allowing us to talk about these issues outside of yesterday's debate. I am sure that we will also do that in other forums. That is important because, on these things, although we may not entirely find a consensus, there will not be a lot that we differ on in terms of the inclusive schooling environment that we want, which is open to all, irrespective of the official sector that it comes from. Sharing and inclusivity is something that I think that we all subscribe to. Certainly, I do, as a Minister, and I am happy to continue that conversation with colleagues in due course.
Thank you, Minister, and thank you, Paula. Thank you, everybody, for the Adjournment debate.
Adjourned at 6.03 pm.