Finding a way to reach the `other side'

`It's bad, because they count the number of Catholic families that are still left in the estate and we're afraid of being petrol…

`It's bad, because they count the number of Catholic families that are still left in the estate and we're afraid of being petrol bombed." Annie is 13 years old. Within the last few months several Catholic families have been forced from their homes on her estate in the seaside town of Larne in east Antrim. Sectarianism, pipe bombs and intimidation have become as much a part of her teenage vocabulary as Playstation or football. And as a Catholic in a 93 per cent Protestant area, she does not find "tolerance" a word which easily rolls off her tongue.

Annie, however, is looking to the future. As a student of Ulidia Integrated College in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, one of 43 integrated schools in Northern Ireland, she is a symbol of hope for future reconciliation in the North. Growing up side-by-side with Protestants, she is learning at an early age how to communicate and build trust with "the other side". Her classmate Kyle (13), a Protestant, lives on the Castlemar estate in Carrickfergus, an area synonymous with sectarianism. He has been spat on and called a "Fenian lover" for wearing his Ulidia uniform in the town - but is perhaps proof that integrated education breeds tolerance.

"I used to be bigot, a real bigot," he explains. "My mum couldn't trust me when I went out in case I started trouble or something. I didn't really want to come to Ulidia, I thought I'd start fights and when I came here first I was talking about `Taigs' and all.

"Then one boy goes, `I'm a Catholic' and I'd thought he was a Protestant and that's when I found out Catholics and Protestants are all the same."

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To accommodate this potentially volatile mix, children in Ulidia are encouraged to discuss "Troubles-related" issues openly in a special class called "Ulidia studies".

"The opportunity has to be there to allow the child to work out in their mind what is right and what is wrong and how you cannot come to generalisations," explains Eugene Martin, principal of Ulidia.

Critics argue that integration amounts to liberal indoctrination. Martin, however, dismisses this: "We never alienate them from their background - we're not trying to take a lot of nationalist Catholics and loyalist Protestants and make some sort of mixed liberal. The purpose of the school is simply to show that you can educate the two together and have your differences, opinions and beliefs."

Chatting to a group of students illustrates that many remain firmly committed to the unionist culture. Kyle enjoys making bonfires at this time of year. "It's part of my heritage," he says. Yet nationalist views are harder to unearth.

"That reflects the society we're based in here in east Antrim, because Catholics are very much in the minority. We don't speak out or demonstrate, or really express our sympathies one way or another," explains Trea Buike.

Buike joined Ulidia's teaching staff this year after spending 20 years teaching in both Catholic and state schools. Although Catholic students are more subdued in expressing their opinions, she insists that Ulidia is doing a lot to promote tolerance in the children: "You couldn't ever tackle these sorts of issues in other schools because you have to teach your subject and that's that. "Being here is really good - you get a chance on occasion to address the problems that children face in the wider community."

Only 11,500 children attend integrated schools in Northern Ireland, 4 per cent of the total. Therefore, polarisation in the political arena is mirrored at the chalkface. Due also to the highly segregated nature of housing, the vast majority of children have little or no contact with "the other side".

Yet all that was set to change. Last year the Belfast Agreement promised to open the door for greater integration in Northern Ireland. It set out to "encourage integrated education and mixed housing" and promote reconciliation between the two communities.

So Martin was confident that Ulidia would qualify for government funding last year. He was to be disappointed. Grant-aid status was denied Ulidia for the third time in succession. The school now has to rely on charitable donations for the current term.

Local Alliance Party councillor Robin Cavan accuses the North-Eastern Education and Library Board of undermining Ulidia's application for funding. The central issue for the board was defending the existing state second-level schools in Carrickfergus and Larne, which have falling student numbers.

According to Iain Foster, development officer for the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education, opposition to integration is becoming more sophisticated: "There is obviously concern and opposition from all the major religious traditions. Because integrated schools are created by parents and managed by parents they have the majority of the seats on the board of governors, so there's no influence or no control by any church or political group," Foster says.

Supporters of integrated education have criticised a working party report, Towards a culture of tolerance-integrating education (published last December), for demonstrating that cash and control are defining the integrated debate. They argue that it supported the existing school structure and shelved integration in favour of encouraging state schools to "transform".

The working party report says down that a "transforming" school must have 10 per cent of the minority religion in its intake for first year, and work towards meeting the 30 per cent target in the future. However, crucially, no time limit is set - and the first formal inspection which will assess whether the criteria is met isn't due for 10 years.

Even after that time, it is unclear if any penalty will be applied to schools which haven't met the target. The fear is that this will lead to a kind of token integration, in which one religion (usually Protestant, due to the stronger demand for integrated education among this community) will dominate.

Martin doubts the ethos of integration in the "transforming" sector: "What's the difference in the transforming school from those schools who say they are naturally integrated? Grammar schools use that phrase quite a lot. My response to them is: what have you being doing for Catholics?"

According to Foster and Martin, areas such as east Antrim desperately need children like Kyle and Annie to reach across the sectarian divide to find common ground. Yet as it stands at present, only parental initiative and charitable funding has created the opportunity for some kids to learn together.

For thousands of other parents who wish to send their children to integrated schools, there is either none in their local area or any mixed-religion schools are over-subscribed.

"Enshrined in basic human rights is the choice to have your child educated to your wishes, and have a variety of education systems that meet the need," says Foster. Yet despite the peace and reconciliation heralded by the Belfast Agreement, the lack of an integrated option is limiting children's horizons.