There is a tendency to become habituated to our surroundings – we stop noticing features of the world around us. This has happened in Northern Ireland with regards to our divided social structures, specifically education. In this blog post, we explain the rationale and strategy behind Ulster University’s Transforming Education project, a series of briefing papers on the complexities of the Northern Ireland education system which underpin this special issue. They aim to prompt readers to dare to notice and to wonder out loud – could this education system be better organised?

‘The aim of the briefing papers is to prompt readers to dare to notice and to wonder out loud – could this education system be better organised?’

Between 2019 and 2021, 12 briefing papers were produced for the ‘Transforming Education’ project in an attempt to stimulate debate about the education system in Northern Ireland in advance of the Independent Review of Education. While partially funded by the Integrated Education Fund, a charity which supports Integrated schools, these were produced as independent research and the funder exercised no editorial control over the topics or the publications. Eventually assembled into a compilation volume with a foreword by the Northern Ireland Children’s Commissioner, such was the traction of the work that another five were produced between 2021 and 2022, covering topics ranging from school ethos and citizenship teaching, to the vision for a single education system. Three more were published in 2023, and a follow-up to an earlier paper was produced in 2024, producing 21 briefing papers in total, all of which are available on the Ulster University website.

From the beginning, the team involved in producing the briefing papers – all of whom are now contributing to the posts in this special issue – were open that their aim was to shine a light on aspects of the education system in Northern Ireland that appeared to be not working as well as they could, or which appeared to be detrimental to the effective delivery of education. Many of these problems were structural, and the team was well aware that those forces that had opposed change in education at previous times were still in powerful positions in relation to schools and retained the strong views that had hitherto preserved the status quo. These forces included churches, which continue to have a strong influence in schooling (Gallagher, 2024) and political parties who perceive electoral advantage in supporting one sector over another (Hansson & Roulston, 2020). The briefing papers tried to avoid, generally successfully, providing answers to the issues raised; the main purpose of the papers was to raise awareness and promote discussion and not to suggest glib solutions to complex issues.

‘The main purpose of the briefing papers was to raise awareness and promote discussion and not to suggest glib solutions to complex issues.’

As expected, there was pushback, and the debates that followed were often robust. However, as well as moving the dial forward in terms of public awareness of some of the issues around education, there were very significant wins. For example, one issue raised was the exception that schools had from Fair Employment legislation (Milliken, 2019), a feature of the education system of which many were unaware. The briefing paper and the debate around it raised its profile and the Fair Employment (School Teachers) Act (Northern Ireland) was passed in 2022, coming into effect on 12 May, 2024. This made it unlawful, for the first time in Northern Ireland, to discriminate in teacher recruitment or promotion on the grounds of religious or philosophical belief or political opinion.

Potentially contentious research is challenging and can provoke disagreement. This may have deterred colleagues from tackling these topics, in favour of safer topics. We would argue, however, that it is exactly those contested spaces that academics should be inhabiting. Indeed, we might ask, what is the point of research if not to ask those difficult questions? Transforming Education aimed to do just that.

References

Gallagher, T. (2024). Religion and diversity in schools in Northern Ireland. Queen’s University Belfast. https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/publications/religion-and-diversity-in-schools-in-northern-ireland

Hansard. (2023). School funding. Volume 732, 10 May 2023, Column 323. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2023-05-10/debates/C6166C04-31FB-4D16-A82C-31C0E4100A33/SchoolFunding?highlight=cost%20division

Hansson, U., & Roulston, S. (2021). Integrated and shared education: Sinn Féin, the Democratic Unionist Party and educational change in Northern Ireland. Policy Futures in Education, 19(6), 730–746. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210320965060

Milliken, M. (2019). Employment mobility of teachers and the FETO exception. Ulster University. https://www.ulster.ac.uk/research/topic/education/our-research/current-research-projects/transforming-education/employment-mobility-of-teachers-and-the-feto-exception