Children on the Catholic Falls Road are much more likely to go to college than those on the Protestant Shankill. Suzanne Breen finds out why
Ulster Unionist councillor Chris McGimpsey is worried that the Shankill has no dreams for its children. A new university is being built on the peaceline in west Belfast. The Springvale Campus could open up exciting opportunities for both communities.
"On the Falls, the parents say it will be wonderful for the kids to go to a university on their own doorstep. On the Shankill, they wonder if their daughter will get a job as a cleaner. One community foresees its youth getting honours degrees; the other looks to its young people washing floors," says Mr McGimpsey.
The lack of educational achievement in the greater Shankill area is striking.
In 1999, 24 per cent of children in the area went on to further or higher education, compared to 41 per cent in nationalist west Belfast. Twenty-six per cent left school with five GCSEs compared to 42 per cent of nationalists across the peaceline. The numbers securing two A Levels, grades A-C, was 16 and 22 per cent respectively.
Mr McGimpsey says only one in 10 children on the Shankill passes the 11-plus - in the North overall it's one in four. In the past, many schools on the Shankill didn't bother entering their pupils for the exam because they didn't want them to have to deal with failure at such an early age, he says.
Even those who pass don't necessarily go to grammar school. "There was a wee girl from a single-parent family who was very bright and sailed through the 11-plus," says Mr McGimpsey. "But her mother thought everybody would think her a snob if she sent her daughter to a grammar school, so she just sent her to the local secondary.
"That wee girl could have been anything. She left school with no qualifications. She is 18 now and a single mother herself. I see her pushing her two kids in the pram up the road."
Mr McGimpsey is worried about children on the Shankill growing up with no ambition other than to "finish school, collect the dole, hang out on street corners, and marry some wee boy or girl from up the road". An under-educated youth is particularly worrying in an area where there are few jobs and an abundance of paramilitaries and drugs, he says.
But why is the Shankill's educational performance so poor? Some community and political figures, including Progressive Unionist Party Assembly member Mr Billy Hutchinson, highlight the sectarian privileges working-class Protestants once enjoyed in Northern Ireland.
They easily secured jobs in the shipyard, or in engineering or other traditional industries so they didn't need or value qualifications. That attitude hasn't changed despite the decline of these industries. Catholics, by comparison, saw education as a way of overcoming discrimination and developed a positive attitude towards it.
Mr McGimpsey believes this theory is over-played. "I haven't come up with another explanation. All I know is that our children are not genetically inferior."
He also senses negative attitudes. "Working-class Protestants believe they've been defeated, whereas republicans behave as though they've won. That isn't the case. Republicans lost the battle in Northern Ireland, they are just too cute to admit it. But it has caused Protestants to be despondent. They don't see the point of anything, including education."
Mr McGimpsey, who has sat on the board of governors of several schools, highlights the problem of attracting quality teachers to the Shankill. "We have a core of excellent, committed teachers who live, eat and breathe the Shankill. We just need more of them."
One of Belfast's best boys' grammar schools, the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, is less than a mile from the Shankill. Mr McGimpsey thinks it should be forced to take 50 Shankill pupils every year regardless of their academic results. If it refuses, the Department of Education should withhold the school's grant, he says.
Glencairn community worker Mr Jimmy Creighton believes some teachers on the Shankill have bad attitudes towards their pupils. "They concentrate on the bright kids and ignore the rest. They say things like, 'these kids have killer eyes'. Once you are stereotyped so young, you never have a chance."
He believes parents and community activists must instil a positive self-image in local children. He claims that addressing the Shankill's educational problem is not helped by the fact that Mr Martin McGuinness is Education Minister - "he will never be accepted here".
Mr Jackie Redpath of the Greater Shankill Partnership stresses the positive educational initiatives taking place. Pilot schemes have been set up to allow parents a greater input into the curriculum. They have made it less formal and more relevant to their children's needs.
A high proportion of children on the Shankill are born to single mothers and courses have been set up to help women encourage their children educationally. "We have a serious problem on the Shankill but the outlook is not totally bleak," says Mr Redpath.