Political commentary

The old school network

Ferdinand Mount

Two thirds of the way through a Guardian article about training Catholic teachers in Northern Ireland, I came across a sentence which brought me up short: 'Educational standards are noticeably higher in Northern Ireland than in the rest of Britain, at least in school ex- amination results.' The author, David Beresford, added, a little hurriedly, that there was also 'a more authoritarian and autocratic approach to internal school ad- ministration'.

Mr Beresford then passed on, sounding rather relieved, to describe a picturesque school in the Divis Flats, known as Crazy Joe's, which takes girls suspended from St Louise's Comprehensive in the same area of Belfast. He seemed unaware of the unex- ploded device he had left in this reader's lap.

After the years of kneecapping and bom- bing and orphaning, amid all the urban deprivation and psychological trauma, after all the pain and tears and valium, Ulster boys and girls, it seems, continue to do bet- ter in exams than children on the mainland. That is not the sort of thing one wishes to read in the Guardian.

The extraordinary nature of this informa- tion is heightened rather than diminished by arguing that exams are not everything and that 0-levels stifle creativity and reward parrot-learning. For you do not have to live in the Divis Flats to know that distress at home is one of the main reasons why children fail exams when they are expected to pass them. A child who has recently been terrified or bereaved may write a more poig- nant poem as a result, but he or she is likely to do worse rather than better at 0-level algebra.

Between September 1980 and December 1981, the Government's Assessment of Per- formance Unit published five reports in which Northern Ireland schools were com- pared with those in other regions. In science, Ulster 11-year-olds were ahead in four out of six categories. In maths, Nor- thern Ireland secondary schoolchildren had the 'highest mean skill scores' and were generally rivalled only by those in Southern England. In primary schools, Northern Irish pupils had the highest scores in 12 out of the 13 sub-categories assessed. In reading and writing, Northern Ireland primary schools again performed extremely well.

How inconvenient all this is for the English mythology about the stupidity of the Irish. The Department of Education in Bangor does not know quite what to make of it all. Perhaps their children just try harder because Northern Ireland is such a small out-of-the-way place. Perhaps the competition for jobs is conducive to more strenuous study, or the old-fashioned discipline, or even the religious rivalry. Perhaps it is Ulster's great tradition of lear- ning — but doesn't every region claim such a tradition? Surely it is at least worth con- sidering also the most obvious thing about schools in Northern Ireland: that they are organised quite differently from schools over the water.

The school system in England and Wales is now very simple and getting simpler all the time. Apart from the 5 per cent in in- dependent fee-paying schools, almost every secondary pupil now attends a comprehen- sive school wholly controlled by the local authority.

In Northern Ireland the system is ex- teremely complicated and diverse. There are four main types of school: the controll- ed schools, mostly Protestant, run by five regional Local Education and Library Boards, of whom 40 per cent are local councillors, 25 per cent represent the rele- vant church, and the remaining 35 per cent are nominated by the Government to repre- sent parents, teachers, trade unions, business and the universities; the maintain- ed schools, mostly Roman Catholic, run by the Maintained Schools Commission, in ef- fect by the Catholic Church which chooses two thirds of the trustees; the voluntary grammar schools, attended by both Pro- testants and Catholics, which charge fees and are run by independent boards of governors; and the handful of wholly in- dependent schools.

The controlled schools are entirely fund- ed by the State. The maintained schools receive all their costs from the State, except for 15 per cent of capital expenditure. The voluntary grammar schools also receive 85 per cent of their capital costs, plus a pro- portion of their running costs, which may cover most of the principal items such as teachers' salaries.

As in Great Britain, the vast majority of children in Northern Ireland are educated almost entirely out of public funds. The dif- ference is that, in Northern Ireland, only the minority of children who attend con- trolled schools have their education even partially influenced by local politicians. This is the 'imbalance between the powers and responsibilities of the local education authorities' which Mr Beresford laments. It is in fact the glory of the system. The State pays — or rather hands over to the schools the money which parents might otherwise have spent on their children's education but the State takes only a modest part in the supervision and direction of those schools.

It is the religious divide which has saved Ulster's schools from the numbing embrace of the State. In the 1930's, Sir James Craig, later Lord Craigavon, made a spirited ef- fort to set up a non-denominational State schools system in Northern Ireland. In England there was a ripple of applause; in Ulster there was outrage. The Catholic hierarchy would not have it, and the Protes- tant churches joined forces with them to resist this assault on religious liberty.

Not surprisingly, the 1944 Education Act was not made to apply in the province. Rab Butler already had enough trouble with the English Catholic hierarchy. Cardinal Hinsley, showing clear signs of decline, could not take much in. Archbishop Downey's health was impaired by his ef- forts to reduce his weight by nine stone. After a heroic feast with the Northern Catholic hierarchy outside Durham — com- parable, I imagine, to those scenes of car- dinals roistering which fetch such prices in the sale-rooms — Lord Butler was under the impression that his proposals had the understanding of the Church. He was speedily undeceived. The word 'ratted' would have trembled on a less temperate tongue. If Butler had tangled with Irish hierarchy as well, there would probably have been no 1944 Act at all.

Thirty-odd years later, Shirley Williams's broad sweep left out Northern Ireland too. The Labour government did vaguely in- timate that the Education and Library Boards ought to think about integrating and comprehensivising, but young Lord Melchett, the Minister of State responsible, made it clear that there was to be no ques- tion of foisting a new system upon the pro- vince. Even these vague intimations ceased upon the return of the Conservative govern- ment in 1979.

Thus religious prejudice has managed, more or less, to keep the politicians' hands off for half a century now. Only a force as violent and unreasoning as the State proved strong enough to resist the demands of the State. No doubt this silver lining is dearly bought. Northern Ireland might indeed be a happier and more tranquil place if its children were all educated in the same schools, regardless of religious allegiance. It is doubtful whether they would be better educated.

Still, Northern Ireland does present as with as good an opportunity as we are likely to get in this world for comparing our pre- sent comprehensive system of State educa- tion with the pre-1944 system — or rather with the pre-1944 system as it would have evolved naturally without a major legislative re-ordering. The results are not without interest. Yet an embarrassed silence has greeted them from the education trade. One does not hear the National Union of Teachers shouting 'Repeal 1944' or 'Bring Back the Grammar Schools'.

Uncharitably, I cannot help wondering what would have been the reaction from the profession if the Assessment of Perfor- mance Unit had reported that Ulster children did badly in exams. What fierce condemnation we should then have heard of sectarian education, of the 11-plus and of 'neanderthal' classroom discipline.