Integrated Education must reimagine itself to survive

The Good Friday Agreement pledged “to facilitate and encourage integrated education” as a vital part of reconciliation in Northern Ireland. More recently, the 2022 Integrated Education Act placed a duty on the Department of Education to support the sector to meet societal demand.

Yet Stormont's Education Minister, Paul Givan, has recently blocked several applications for schools to transform to Integrated status. He says that Integrated Education has “lost its way”, urging it to refocus on its original vision to attract "reasonable numbers" of Protestant and Catholic pupils to its schools.

This article will examine Givan's diagnosis. It will find that, rather than Integrated Education losing its way, in many respects it is the way forward itself which has changed, whilst the path taken by the Integrated Education movement has barely deviated from its original vision. As a result it has failed to adapt to these changes.

It will make a case, backed by extensive evidence, that rather than doubling down on its founders' ecumenical approach, the sector needs a radical overhaul – reimagining its purpose and principles to meet the demands of an increasingly plural and secular Northern Ireland – to survive.

Despite early growth, only a small fraction (8.5%) of Northern Irish pupils attend Integrated schools today

The vast majority of pupils in Northern Ireland today attend schools associated with one of its two historically Christian communities.

At primary level, Catholic Maintained schools educated 46% of pupils in the 2025/26 school year, whilst state Controlled schools – de facto Protestant by virtue of their historic transfer from the Protestant churches and persistent church influence – educated 45%.

The picture at post-primary level is similar, complicated slightly by a grammar sector which is less tightly coupled with churches.

Across primary and post-primary level combined, only 8.5% of pupils were educated in Integrated schools, which intentionally educate pupils of different backgrounds together. This number has only grown by 1.5% in the last 10 years, a disappointing rate for a movement which started with such promise.

A brief history of Integrated Education

The Integrated Education movement was born when a handful of Catholic parents, who wanted state schools to prepare their children for first communion, formed a group called All Children Together in the late 1970s.

They were joined by Protestant parents and others of different faiths and beliefs who wanted their children to be educated in the same schools, and wished to demonstrate that society had nothing to fear from this idea.

One of the movement's founders was Tony Spencer, a sociologist based at Queen’s University Belfast. His vision for Integrated Education was not just to bring children together, but to create new institutions that people from across the community divide would take joint responsibility for, from teachers and parents to governors, as well as children and ancillary staff. These new institutions – Integrated schools – would be brought into existence by local founding groups.

From the beginning, there were debates amongst these groups about identity labels. They were recognised as simplistic, binary and reductive – problematic. But alongside this recognition came an acceptance that they were essential descriptors of the religious and cultural divisions in society. Examining and exploring them in Integrated schools could combat ignorance, fear and mistrust.

As for religion, some of the founders argued for comprehensive community schools without church involvement. But most of them were committed Christians, keen for their children to have a full expression of their faith within the school environment, as well as to secure the buy-in of churches for their project.

The advocates of a more secular system bit their lips and compromised. The fact that some of its pupils would have "other" identities was recognised, but the primary mission of Integrated Education would be to bring together children from the two "main" communities, proxied by their contrasting Christian beliefs.

The Christian principles of Integrated Education

The Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE) was formed during this period, and its Statement of Principles, which remains the defining document of Integrated Education, reflects this history.

It describes the Integrated school as "essentially Christian in character" and the second of its four core principles, Faith & Values, confirms this, stating that the Integrated school "provides a Christian based rather than a secular approach".

This prioritisation of Christian identity is reinforced by possibly its most well-known and controversial statement of intent, the "40/40/20 rule", described in the first clause of its first core principle, Equality. Proposed by Spencer and inspired by Allport's contact hypothesis, this rule sets out an aspiration for each Integrated school to have:

an annual intake of at least 40% pupils from a perceived Catholic background and at least 40% pupils from a perceived Protestant background.

The remaining 20%, a catch-all for pupils who don't neatly fit into these two categories, is implied. And although they are acknowledged throughout the document, the essentially ecumenical nature of the Integrated project is hard to deny.

The legal framework for Integrated schools

Alongside NICIE's Statement of Principles, Northern Irish law supplies a legal definition of Integrated schools, and how they can be established.

This definition was last updated in 2022, when the Integrated Education Act expanded it to encompass socio-economic background and ability, whilst retaining a reference to educating "reasonable numbers" of both Protestant and Roman Catholic children:

“Integrated education” means the education together, in an integrated school, of: (a) those of different cultures and religious beliefs and of none, including reasonable numbers of both Protestant and Roman Catholic children or young persons; (b) those who are experiencing socio-economic deprivation and those who are not; and (c) those of different abilities.

In today's context of declining birth rates, establishing new schools of any type is hard. However, the legislation does provide a more viable route by which the Integrated sector can grow: the transformation of existing schools of other sectors to Integrated status.

This process can be initiated by the board of governors of a school, or if enough parents register their desire for it to transform. If a majority of all parents agree, the school may proceed to submit a transformation proposal to the Minister of Education for approval.

This is the stage at which recent attempts to transform schools have failed.

Recent rejections and the (un)likelihood of reasonable numbers

The current DUP Minister for Education, Paul Givan, rejected transformation proposals from two Bangor schools in 2025, and a further four schools earlier this year. Central to his argument in each case was Article 92(6) of the 1989 Education Reform (Northern Ireland) Order:

The Department shall not approve a proposal under this Article in relation to a school unless it appears to the Department that, if the school were to become, or be established as, a controlled integrated school, the school would be likely to provide integrated education.

In essence, he argued that he could not legally approve transformation unless it appeared likely to him that a school would provide integrated education, a test which – in his interpretation – centred on the question of whether it would be likely to achieve an enrolment including "reasonable numbers" of both Protestant and Catholic pupils. Every recent school transformation proposal has been deemed to fail this test.

Where now?

So where does Integrated Education go from here? Paul Givan has suggested a redoubled focus on numeric balance, and offered a slight change to his Department's approach to assessing the viability of prospective schools that would take account of community background as well as declared religion.

This would widen the scope of the criterion beyond those who identify with their religion, to those with the broader community identity, aligning with the criterion used by Integrated schools to assess applications.

While this may appear at first to make transformation slightly easier, the Integrated Education Fund (IEF), a charity which supports parents and schools considering transformation, and NICIE argue that Integrated Education is about more than just numbers:

Integrated Education cannot be reduced to just numbers of Protestant and Catholic children alone. Many parents who chose Integrated schools do not fit into these traditional categories. Integrated Education promotes an intentional ethos which permeates every aspect of school life.

However, the education commentator William Kitchen has pointed out that:

those metrics ... were parameters that the integrated movement set for themselves whenever the movement started. So if the situation has changed and integration as a movement is about something different, then they need to redefine themselves.

This question – whether the movement needs to redefine itself – will be the focus of the rest of this article.

Identity and preference beyond the binary

In the following analysis, we will ask whether the goal of achieving a numeric balance of pupils, defined in binary terms that perpetuate a historical divide, is realistic or desirable.

We will start by looking at how Northern Irish people – adults of parental age as well as younger school pupils – define themselves today. Then we will look at where the demand for Integrated Education is coming from, as evidenced by survey opinions and enrolment trends at Integrated schools.

We'll use the criteria laid out by Paul Givan and the Statement of Principles to assess the potential for future growth if the sector sticks to its guns and continues to aim for a 40/40/20 mix in its classrooms.

Finally, we'll move beyond the numbers to ask what families actually want from an inclusive school sector, before setting out a way forward.

Community and religious identities split three ways in Northern Ireland today

The Northern Ireland Life and Times survey (NILT) asks adults living in Northern Ireland a range of questions every year. Combining results from the last two years' surveys, the responses for the relevant questions on religious and community identity for adults of broadly parental age (18-54) are shown below:

These results reveal an almost perfect three-way split between Catholic and Protestant identities and those who identify as "neither". This is true across respondents whether they are asked about their religious or community identity.

This does not mean that nearly everyone who regards themselves as belonging to one religious category also belongs to the same community category. In fact, there is crossover in both directions (see table below):

Nevertheless, it is clear that only two thirds of adults between 18–54 years old identify within the traditional Protestant/Catholic binary. No matter whether you ask a religion or community question, a third of the population in this age bracket rejects a binary label.

Those identifying as being from neither community have the strongest desire for Integrated Education

Most Integrated schools discriminate on the basis of community identity if they are over-subscribed. But do parents within all three identity groups actually want Integrated Education for their children, or do some groups prefer it more than the others?

For the last two years, the NILT survey has asked a question which gives us a direct answer to that question:

Whilst our first chart showed that broadly a third of the parental-age population falls into each community category, it is clear from the second chart above that demand for Integrated Education is much stronger amongst those who identify as being from neither community.

Household religious structure and school preference

The NILT survey also asks questions about religion, and about the religion of respondents' partners if they are in a couple. This allows us to build a picture of household structure by religion – we can identify where respondents are single or part of a couple which shares a religion or belief, or whether they are in a mixed-belief relationship.

We can then assess support for Integrated Education by these categories:

Non-religious households – those with either a single non-religious adult or a couple who are both non-religious – display the strongest preference for Integrated Education. They are followed by mixed Christian households – where one partner is Protestant and the other is Catholic – and households with other types of mixed partnership. These are also the household types most likely to identify as being from "neither" community.

Households with a single Christian adult or where both partners identify with the same branch of Christianity display the lowest net preference for Integrated Education, with many opposed to it. These findings are consistent with the previous chart.

Regular churchgoers demonstrate net opposition to Integrated Education

Within religious families, we can go one step further, and ask how preferences for Integrated Education vary by frequency of church attendance, another question which the NILT survey asks. The results along this dimension are striking:

The negative correlation between frequency of church attendance and preference for Integrated Education is clear. Indeed, respondents who identify with a religion but never attend church are more than twice as likely to prefer Integrated Education than those who attend church more than once a month, only 26% of whom would prefer an Integrated school.

Looking at this data from another angle, we can ask what the group of parental-age adults who would prefer Integrated schools look like, compared to those who would not:

Only 11% of the demand for Integrated Education comes from regular churchgoers. In fact, 75% of the respondents who said they would prefer an Integrated school were either non-religious (42%), never attend church (18%) or do so once a year or less (15%).

Enrolment trends reflect this post-binary society

A criticism that is often levelled at survey data is that it measures theoretical preferences. Respondents' actual behaviour can be very different.

Luckily, the Department of Education collects comprehensive data on school enrolments, which we can use to examine the religious mix of pupils at Northern Irish schools, as submitted by their parents. Although this will not match community identity exactly, it is likely to be a good proxy.

The enrolment trend at Integrated primary schools over the last 20 years, with a projection of how this trend might continue to 2030, is shown below:

When NICIE's Statement of Principles was last revised in 2008, primary enrolment across the sector came close to its stated aspiration – a 40/40/20 mix: Catholic pupils made up 39% of the pupil population, with Protestants comprising 37%. The "other" category was ahead of its 20% allocation at 24%, but not by much.

Since then there has been a steady increase in the number of "other" pupils at Integrated schools. They are now the largest group within the sector, accounting for 40% of its total enrolment in the 2025/26 school census.

If current trends continue (and the stable, linear trend displayed here suggests no reason that they won't), pupils identified by parents as being neither Protestant nor Catholic will make up 46% of Integrated primary enrolments by 2030, and a majority a few years after that.

Young people increasingly identify outside of traditional binaries

The chart above tracks the trend in parental identification of pupil religion at point of entry to primary school. Relying on parental opinion for children who are 4 or 5 years old when they start school makes sense, but at secondary level, it is better to ask pupils themselves how they identify.

The Young Life & Times (YLT) survey does precisely this. Run by the same team as NILT, the YLT is sent annually to all young people in Northern Ireland whose 16th birthday fell between January and March. Whilst it does not ask a direct question about community identity, it does ask national identity and religion questions.

Results from the 2026 edition of YLT were recently released. As the Irish News reported, the number of pupils identifying as Northern Irish – a more neutral label than British or Irish – saw the biggest rise in the 2026 results. This national identity was selected by 50% of 1,962 teenage respondents.

Using the YLT data, we can break this headline statistic down by type of school attended:

As the chart above shows, pupils at Integrated schools were the most likely to identify as Northern Irish in the latest survey, with 59% of them selecting this option.

The majority of GCSE pupils at Integrated schools are non-religious

Moving on to religion, as reported by Humanists UK, more 16-year-olds across Northern Ireland now identify as non-religious than either Catholic or Protestant.

Here again, we can break down the headline statistics by type of school. The following chart aggregates results for the last four years of YLT survey data:

The pattern here is just as clear. A majority of pupils at Integrated schools (54%) identify as having no religion, with a further 4% following minority religions.

The sample size behind this statistic is robust: 688 pupils who attend Integrated schools have been asked this question over the last 4 years. A significant majority (58%) of these young people do not identify as Christian.

The Statement of Principles no longer aligns with demographics or demand

So far, we have profiled attitudes to Integrated Education amongst adults aged 18–54, and pupils aged 16. We have looked at the enrolment trends within the Integrated sector itself, and examined how Integrated pupils identify.

There is significant evidence that the sector's "essentially Christian" character, and its aspiration to allocate 80% of its spaces to families identifying within the traditional binary, no longer align with identities of those it currently serves, nor those who express the strongest preference for it.

But even if we put these alignment concerns to one side, in practical terms, achieving a 40/40/20 mix is statistically near-impossible in most areas, further damaging the movement's prospects for further growth.

Very few schools are likely to achieve "reasonable numbers" under current ministerial guidance

Paul Givan has laid out two tests that must be passed in order for him to approve transformation proposals. The first relates to the community mix that a newly-transformed Integrated school must achieve in its first year: a minority population of 10%, or 15% of the combined Catholic + Protestant total, whichever is lower.

The second test is more vague: the Minister must be confident that the school will achieve "reasonable numbers" of Protestant and Catholic pupils over the longer term. To clarify what this ambiguous statement means, he has pointed to NICIE's aspiration for a 40/40/20 mix, together with the literature on contact theory used by NICIE to justify these proportions.

There are only two schools in the whole of Northern Ireland that currently meet this criterion – Strabane Academy (a grammar school) and Jones Memorial Primary School in Enniskillen. Only seven schools that are not already Integrated, including these two, meet a lower benchmark that the Department of Education previously used as their long-term target: a minority enrolment of 30%.

Four of those seven are grammar schools, which would have to give up academic selection to transform. That leaves three non-selective schools in the whole of Northern Ireland that currently meet the 30% benchmark (which may not be enough to satisfy the Minister anyway).

Clearly, schools seeking to transform will make the case that their enrolment could change post-transformation. However, here again, the Minister has a counterargument, pointing to the experiences of previously transformed schools and the fact that, in many cases, their enrolment mix has remained relatively static.

Combining these statistics with the Minister's approach, it would appear that the growth in Integrated Education has run out of road.

What do families want, and do their current options represent a real choice?

Our analysis so far has taken the existing sectors, and the definition of Integrated schools, as fixed: when a survey asks whether respondents would prefer Integrated schools, it refers to the definition of these schools as it stands today, and how they compare to other school types that are currently available.

That comparison doesn't necessarily represent ideal choice. A recent research study, authored by Kathryn Torney and commissioned by the IEF, found that:

parents’ school preference doesn’t always align with the constrained choice families may ultimately make when it comes to selecting schools for their children ... A strong message emerges from this research: many parents believe Northern Ireland’s education system needs to change.

One particular area where there is little choice is religion. Almost every school in Northern Ireland has a Christian ethos, including Integrated schools.

Yet in November 2024, a LucidTalk poll sponsored by NI Humanists revealed that most parents want less church influence and a more inclusive approach to religion in schools. When asked "do you agree that church representatives should be involved in running schools", a majority of respondents disagreed:

Respondents identifying with neither traditional community – the key support base for Integrated Education – were most strongly opposed to church governance. More than two thirds strongly disagreed with this idea, whilst only 13% agreed.

Even more surprising perhaps was that the Catholic community also displayed net opposition to church control, with only 28% support. The Catholic Maintained sector might point to enrolment figures as evidence of underlying demand. Yet any parent who would like their children to play Gaelic sports has little choice but to send their children to a Catholic school. Many of them are putting up with church influence as part of the package, but would like to see it gone.

Radical change is required

No system can offer ideal choices to every family. But the choices faced by Northern Ireland's parents and children are particularly limited in one important respect – religion.

Families who want an alternative to Catholic schooling, or a state Controlled sector that retains a large degree of church influence – not least via the thousands of evangelists it invites through its doors each year – may look to the Integrated sector for a way forward.

Yet NICIE continues to define Integrated schools as "essentially Christian in character", looking back to historic labels and discriminating on the basis of religious background in its admissions policies. In doing so, it denies places to those children who don't conform to a binary system of identity – a system the sector should be navigating away from, but instead acts to perpetuate and entrench.

A distinctive, inclusive, secular sector is within reach

Advocates of enrolment targets claim they are a key feature of the sector, without which it would lose distinctiveness. But dispensing with both admissions quotas and the exclusionary Christian ethos of the sector would leave highly distinctive, inclusive and forward-looking schools that would be as secular as possible within current laws. There is significant and growing demand for such schools.

These changes are within NICIE's gift. As Torney's research concluded, the Statement of Principles must be updated. Addressing the privileged status of Christianity and discriminatory admissions quotas are essential first steps.

As to how the Integrated ethos could evolve, its existing anti-bias approaches provide an excellent foundation. Building on this, Educate Together has shown that significant parental demand exists in Ireland for an inclusive, equality-based approach. Community National Schools, also in Ireland, and the comprehensive system in England provide other possible templates.

Navigating the way forward here will undoubtedly require extensive consultation and deliberative work. That work must start now.

Changes to the law will be needed

Updated statements of principles and ethos would bring the Integrated sector more in line with the constituency of families that want inclusive education. But for fuller alignment with parental preferences, and to remove legislative hurdles preventing transformation, the law will need to change.

In particular, the definition of Integrated Education, only recently updated with the 2022 Act, could be revised to remove the unhelpful "reasonable numbers" clause. The rules for Integrated school boards should also be updated, removing privileged positions for church representatives and opening up access to school governance opportunities to anyone from the wider community.

Making it happen – the art of the possible

There are many aspects of Northern Ireland's Education system that need to change. Some would like a more radical overhaul, resulting in a single, shared, secular system. That may be beyond the possible right now.

But there is an opportunity for Integrated Education to act as a pioneer and a beacon, as it did 45 years ago. If the movement listens to what parents and young people are asking for, and can respond to the realities of society today, it can continue to grow, and maybe that growth could accelerate again as it did before.

It must seize the opportunity and reimagine itself to find out.