Belfast's Shankill Road has achieved some notoriety during the Troubles and now a loyalist paramilitary feud is tearing the area apart. It is home to a community trying hard to cope with serious inherited social deprivations, but with the compounding factor of paramilitarism. Here, particularly for the over-15-year-olds, school is definitely out.

In the last school term, out of 306 post-primary pupils resident in the Shankill Ward, only nine were aged over 15, which shows a huge drop-off after GCSEs. The few pupils who do go on to A-levels and third level must possess heroic qualities.

Meanwhile, the simmering feud between the UDA and UVF has resulted in concerns that Malvern Street primary school in the lower Shankill could close because parents with links to the UVF have withdrawn their children for safety reasons and the school now may not meet the numbers requirement.

The problems of the Shankill are due to a combination of factors, not least 30 years of serious political instability, massive unemployment and a great depletion of the Shankill population through, ironically, urban renewal. All of this has resulted in an unravelling of its traditional tight-knit social fabric and the disengagement of its youth from much of the rest of civic society. With local paramilitary rivalry receiving the attention of the world's media, it is hardly surprising that some young people see Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair and his associates as attractive role models.

Shankill boys, in particular, have had no great tradition for remaining in school; there had always been an expectation that what awaited them after a basic schooling were solid apprenticeships in places like the shipyards, where generations of the same families had automatically gone. But where once the shipyards employed over 30,000, with many more in downstream employment, now there are just 1,000 and, with the viability of the yard in question, the future looks bleak.

The authorities have recognised that parts of the Shankill area are in particular need of additional educational assistance. Some families with special needs have been targeted for specific measures such as special classes and increased tuition, and they are encouraged to think of the benefits of remaining in education.

It is hoped these measures will offer the youngsters possibilities in life other than the activities we saw on our television screens recently. It is deeply ironic, in terms of role models, that the minister with overall responsibility for education in the North is a former nationalist paramilitary, Martin McGuinness.