As part of this year’s Féile debates and discussion programme, the Integrated Education Fund (IEF) hosted a public event at St Mary’s University College in Belfast, to launch new research into the reality of parental choice in school selection in Northern Ireland. The event was chaired by Amanda Ferguson, a Belfast-based freelance journalist and Northern Ireland correspondent for Reuters, and opened with a welcome from Dr Jessica Blomkvist, IEF’s senior advocacy officer. The research was presented by its author, Kathryn Torney, a freelance journalist, researcher, and consultant. A panel discussion and audience Q&A followed, featuring Paul Caskey OBE (IEF), Natalie Johnston (Scoil na Seolta), Nick Mathison MLA (Alliance, Chair of the Stormont Education Committee), and Jack Russell (Parents for Inclusive Education).

Ferguson set a pointed tone in her opening remarks. “Parental choice” is a term heard constantly in press releases and ministerial statements, she noted, yet the reality for many families bears little resemblance to the rhetoric. The evening, she said, was about asking parents directly — and listening to what they actually said.

The research: a gap in knowledge

Torney opened by outlining why the research was needed. Despite multiple surveys consistently showing majority public support for integrated education, only around 8% of pupils in Northern Ireland attend integrated schools. A 2021 Ulster University study found that controlled and Catholic-maintained schools are within easy reach of the majority of the population, but integrated schools are not: for many households, attendance at an integrated primary school is “largely out of the question, even if school transport was available”. The 2023 Independent Review of Education called for integrated or jointly managed community schools to be available to all families within a realistic travelling distance as soon as possible.

The evidence base on public demand is striking. A LucidTalk poll in 2025 found 61% of Northern Ireland respondents said integrated schools should be the main education model. A 2024 Life and Times Survey found 55% preferred to send their child to an integrated school (and see also Department of Education (DE) associated report). The department’s own parental school admissions survey found over 31% preferred integrated education. Although Torney noted it didn’t include responses from children with special needs, because their school applications are processed separately: “With over 33,000 children attending our schools having a statement, this is a huge information gap.” The financial cost of the divided system is estimated at £150 million per year, or £789,000 every school day, according to research by Dr Stephen Roulston of Ulster University.

The research was commissioned by IEF between March and May 2026 and comprised desk research, a survey of almost 150 parents (88% female), and in-depth interviews with 16 parents drawn from a wide range of backgrounds, locations, and school experiences. The Department of Education declined to provide an interview with Minister Paul Givan, responding instead in writing. FOI requests to the department on integrated education demand were largely unproductive: of 3,259 documents identified, only 35 were eventually provided, with extensive redactions, and Torney noted little of practical use within them.

Key findings

The survey findings were unambiguous:

• 69% of parents wanted the option of an integrated school within realistic travelling distance
• 61% thought integrated schools should be the main education model
• 56% said they would choose an integrated school if one were available, with a further 33% saying they might
• of those with a stated school preference, 70% named an integrated school — and 28% of that group said their preferred option was unavailable.

The interview findings illuminated why. “Parental choice is an illusion in the North,” was one parent’s assessment of life in a rural area. First preference on an admissions form, Torney emphasised, does not necessarily reflect ideal choice: it reflects what is accessible, affordable, and realistic. Parents navigate admissions criteria they often find opaque and inconsistent, oversubscription in popular schools, transport barriers, and the complete absence of integrated options across large parts of every county.

One finding surprised even Torney. “This issue came up more than academic selection did,” she said of the question of religion and admissions — a result she described as unexpected given her background as a former education correspondent. Admissions processes, she argued, were generating “false data” by pressuring parents to identify as Catholic or Protestant even when they considered themselves neither, misrepresenting the actual composition of schools and of society.

Panel discussion: why still only 8%?

The panel discussion opened with the central question of why, after four decades, integrated schools still educate only 8% of pupils.

Johnston, who co-founded Scoil na Seolta, an Irish-medium integrated school in Belfast, spoke from direct experience of the practical obstacles. Funding for new projects is precarious; it is hard to persuade parents to “take a chance” on a new school when established alternatives feel safer. “That’s one of the challenges,” she said. “How do you get parents to see that there is another option within your community — somewhere safe and comfortable that their children will achieve the same as the shiny school down the road?” She also described her own experience as a Belfast parent who discovered there were no integrated schools in East Belfast: “I panicked a little bit. I realised I didn’t have choices in my area, just like so many of the parents in this report.”

Caskey was more direct about structural failure. “Integrated education has never been planned for,” he said. The movement grew from grassroots parent action on greenfield sites — “an amazing thing to do, but a very challenging thing to do, largely in the absence of government support.” He pointed to schools in Bangor, Derry/Londonderry’s Culmore, and St Eugene’s at Victoria Bridge, where parents voted for integration and were denied (see Culmore statement by DE minister and St Eugene’s decision). “They’re open today. They’re just not allowed to be integrated schools.” Without government area planning, monitoring demand, and measuring preferences, he argued, the system would continue to reflect political inertia rather than parental will.

Russell focused on the transformation route, which he argued was now the primary path to expanding capacity given declining enrolments. He described two personal experiences: a failed parent-led transformation at his son’s school in Holywood, where concern about the 40/40/20 religious quota — and what it might mean for children who currently identify as “Other” (53% of that school’s enrolment) — contributed to the vote failing; and a successful ballot at Rathmore, which the Minister nonetheless declined to approve. “Maybe we have to redefine what integrated means,” he said, “much more around the ethos and the approach, as opposed to a strict focus on the mix.”

Mathison was unsparing about the political dimension. “There has simply been no political will,” he said, citing DUP ministers in particular. “If there isn’t the political will, you’re not going to plan, and you’re not going to direct resources. The responsibility for delivering integrated education has largely fallen to parents and to charity — and that’s not how you run an education system.” He also identified the 40/40/20 admissions model as “the biggest challenge facing the integrated movement,” arguing it no longer fits Northern Ireland’s demographics and was being actively used by the current minister to block transformation. “The public are ready to have this conversation,” he said. “I think most people have moved on beyond binary Protestant/Catholic boxing-in.”

Audience questions

The audience Q&A produced some of the sharpest exchanges of the evening. Kate Campbell, a founding parent of one of Northern Ireland’s first integrated primary schools, now celebrating its 40th year, asked what the main blockages were. Mathison’s response was precise: remove the minister’s veto on school transformation. “If a clear majority of parents are supporting it, and the board of governors are supporting it, it really shouldn’t be in the hands of a minister to say ‘not for me in this case.’ And there’s no accountability to that decision.”

Torney was asked about the socio-economic dimension of the research — what the data showed beyond religious background, in terms of social disadvantage and income. Torney confirmed that integrated schools generally have a higher percentage of pupils entitled to free school meals and a broader range of ability. Matt O’Neill (Integrated Alumni) added that the Integrated Education Act’s 1(b) and 1(c) definitions already encompass a wider definition of integration beyond religion, including socio-economic factors and a range of abilities, and that messaging should reflect this. The suggestion from this table was that broadening the lens beyond religious demographics could reduce the political toxicity of the debate for vested interests defending particular school sector ethos.

A question on accountability — specifically a July 2026 Northern Ireland Audit Office report giving the Department of Education [with the Education Authority] six months to address governance in grammar schools and voluntary grammars — prompted Mathison to call on the Public Accounts Committee to take the report seriously. “Governance across the piece needs a serious look,” he said. “Lack of accountability at board and governor level is a really, really important one across the entire education system.”

The final question of the evening, on how to begin moving reform forward, drew a blunt assessment from Mathison: “Northern Ireland is not good at doing reform of any kind across any department.” On academic selection, he suggested the solution was relatively straightforward in technical terms — change the criteria — but required political will that has so far been absent. “Whoever the next education minister is, if you want to move that forward: task your officials to bring forward an options paper, and then have a proper discussion about how we do it. No minister has looked at that.”

Ferguson closed the proceedings on a note that summed up the evening’s central tension: “We’ve run out of time before we’ve run out of questions.” The research report, commissioned by IEF, is available at ief.org.uk.

Cross-published at Mr Ulster.