Debate contribution: North/South Ministerial Council: Education

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on 3 June 2024.

MLA

Mr Paul Givan

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

3 June 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Ministerial Statements

Heading

North/South Ministerial Council: Education

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4492956

Read the official Assembly record

Text

In compliance with section 52 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, I wish to make the following statement on the meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC) in education sector format that was held on Wednesday 22 May 2024. The meeting took place in the Department of Education's Marlborough Street offices in Dublin and was chaired by Norma Foley TD, the Minister for Education for the Republic of Ireland. I attended the meeting along with Caoimhe Archibald, the Minister of Finance, who attended as the accompanying Minister, and Hildegarde Naughton TD, Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach. Caoimhe Archibald, the Minister of Finance, has agreed the statement and agreed for me to make it on our behalf. The meeting was cordial and productive, and progress was made on a number of key issues, including the review of the work programme; special educational needs (SEN); school, youth and teacher exchanges; cooperation between education inspectorates; educational underachievement; and addressing climate change and loss of biodiversity in the education sector. The Council noted that officials from both Administrations have conducted a review of the work programme for the NSMC education sector. Ministers noted the outcome of the review and agreed the revised work programme for the sector. Stephen Douthart, chief executive officer of Middletown Centre for Autism (MCA), and Rosemary Steen, vice-chair, provided Ministers with an overview of the work of the centre. Ministers welcomed the overall achievements of the MCA since 2021 and commended the valuable contribution that its range of services has made to the education of children with autism and to young people in both jurisdictions. Ministers welcomed Stephen Douthart, the new CEO, and Sheila Darling, the new chair. They thanked Jim Lennon, the previous interim CEO, and Rosemary Steen, the previous chair, for their work in supporting the centre. The Council noted the work being carried out by both Departments and the MCA to develop, extend and enhance the services of the centre across the island. Ministers welcomed the fact that both Departments and the centre were scoping the potential for expansion of the services at Middletown to meet emergent needs in both jurisdictions. The Council noted the activity on pupil, youth, student and teacher exchanges on a North/South basis and the valuable experience that it has provided to those involved. Ministers welcomed the approval of funding under the PEACE PLUS programme under the Shared Learning Together heading, including for North/South school civic exchanges and under the youth mental health and well-being area. Ministers welcomed the proposals made by the two Education Departments and Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, to extend development and delivery of the teacher research exchange (T-REX) across both jurisdictions. The Council noted the work undertaken by the North/South Education and Training Standards Committee on endorsing undergraduate and postgraduate youth work programmes. The Council noted the work of the North/South youth work sector practice development hub in strengthening and developing sustainable North/South youth work sector relationships and enhancing the quality of the learning experience of young people participating in youth services across the island. Ministers also welcomed the continuing collaborative work of the two education inspectorates and noted an update on inspection cooperation and engagement since 2021. They agreed that the respective inspectorates, along with their commissioning Departments, should explore the potential for funding to enable either or both inspectorates to be commissioned as the evaluators of choice or preferred evaluators and to provide a complete monitoring and quality assurance evaluation service to relevant projects and programmes. Ministers welcomed the agreement in principle to commence a pilot cooperation programme in 2024 and 2025 to address educational disadvantage, supported by an allocation of €24 million from the Government of Ireland's Shared Island Fund, which is around £20 million. Ministers agreed that updates on the programme would be provided at future meetings. Ministers also welcomed the focus on addressing educational disadvantage included in the design of the new PEACE PLUS Shared Learning Together programme, related calls for which were published in 2023, and welcomed the recent positive funding announcements worth €13·3 million that have been made to date in respect of the programme. The Council noted the climate change obligations in place in both jurisdictions. Ministers confirmed the Council's commitment to ongoing collaboration between jurisdictions involving curriculum development, shared teacher professional learning opportunities and shared resources that emphasise sustainability and environmental stewardship. Ministers agreed that that collaboration could extend to sharing knowledge and experience on improvements in the school estate and transportation fleet. My officials and I look forward to continuing to work in the education sector.

The funding is exclusively for Northern Ireland. I provided the detail in a written ministerial statement. I have already announced it. It was launched last week, and the details are in that. We are standing the programme up. There will be programme boards in every council area, and I would just refer the Minister to the written ministerial statement for an answer to his question.

I thank the Member for his comments. Where learning can be gained from either jurisdiction, we need to make sure that we share it. Where there is opportunity to look at educational underachievement and disadvantage, I am very much up for doing that. The programme that we announced last week is significant in how it builds on the 'A Fair Start' report. Now that we have officially announced the programme, we will continue to develop the criteria for and outworkings of it. It will make a very real impact. It is about a whole-community response with not only schools but other organisations, which could be churches or youth organisations. It is about supporting parents as well. I am pleased to be able to roll the programme out, but it will partly be for the programme boards in each area to work through the exact details of how it will operate in order to ensure that it makes the kind of impact that we want. Where we can learn from other jurisdictions, we should do so.

The primary focus is on educational underachievement. There is also an element to do with the teacher research exchange, or T-REX, that I talked about. In that scheme, there is a programme called Bringing Live Arts to Students and Teachers (BLAST), which takes a type of creative industry approach. It is about asking how we can increase creative and performing arts in schools. The scheme is being taken forward now. In every local government area, there will be a scheme somewhere. There are 15 specific areas. Every parliamentary constituency in Belfast is covered, and, in that respect, East Belfast is included. I look forward to meeting representatives from EastSide Learning in due course to see how it can be part of the programmes that we want to take forward in the constituency of East Belfast.

Out of the elements of PEACE PLUS funding that the Department of Education continues to take forward, the key one is reducing educational disadvantage. It is now called the RAISE programme. It is about raising levels of achievement for individuals, schools and communities. It will build on what was contained in the 'A Fair Start' report. It has been welcomed by those who were involved in that. That is one of the key funding issues from which we have been getting support. I mentioned Middletown Centre for Autism in my statement, which is a centre of excellence. It provides support in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. What more could Middletown do, particularly around special needs and supporting other schools? There is real opportunity in that area, and it is one where, if we can do it across both countries, we should do so.

The criteria that were used are there and will be robust when it comes to questions about which areas were included. The programme includes 15 areas in Northern Ireland. We wanted to make sure that there was a geographical spread, and every local government authority is included. It may not extend to every parliamentary constituency in Northern Ireland, but there is a geographic spread. Educational underachievement is the key measurement that was used to identify areas that need the greatest amount of support because the programme is targeted at reducing educational underachievement. There were criteria to identify the number of areas in which work will be taken forward. There has to be a cut-off point. Not everywhere will benefit from the programme, but I ensured that every part of Northern Ireland had schemes in communities. Every local authority will be involved.

The Member, I know, will be pleased that I have been engaging east-west, and he will welcome that. Before the general election was called, I had met the UK Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan, and the Schools Minister. Indeed, before the election was called, there was to have been a meeting of the Scottish, Welsh and English Ministers of Education and me, which I would have hosted here in Northern Ireland. The Member is right that we need to learn from all the jurisdictions that can help children here. Where I can get information from the Republic of Ireland, I absolutely will do so; equally, I want to make sure that we are supported in developing our education system by learning from Great Britain. I have been engaging on that, and I know that the Member will welcome my engagements on the east-west dimension.

Let me give a more detailed answer to the Member on what support is available for exchanges, because best practice, shared learning and shared experiences benefit everybody who is involved in them. I will write to the Member specifically on what support there is for youth engagement.

The Chairman of the Education Committee raises an important point about collaboration in the Executive and in Departments. We have been doing that and have been getting support from Executive colleagues. As the programme boards are stood up, they take a whole-community approach. We need to make sure that key stakeholders in Departments are involved in that, because it is not solely about education. Making sure that we provide support for education in communities also has benefits for health and the criminal justice system, particularly where we are working in areas of disadvantage. The announcement was made last week, but it did not get covered. It may get covered now that the issue has been aired. It is a significant announcement of £20 million and of programmes that will be established across Northern Ireland that will benefit people, particularly where there is educational underachievement and disadvantage in our communities. That is to be welcomed.

Absenteeism levels, particularly after COVID, have been a challenge across every sector. They are part of the reason why it is important that we keep schools open, because absenteeism is at its highest level since pre COVID. It got worse after COVID because of the lockdown measures that were put in place. I am concerned about absenteeism levels. We are working to address that, but we are living with a legacy of not having had schools open. We need to make sure that we can keep our schools open. Part of the reason why I welcomed the suspension of industrial action is that we were able to keep schools open today. That is vital, particularly for making sure that our special schools can stay open for our most vulnerable. Hopefully, I will have more to say on that at Question Time later this afternoon. We need to address absenteeism. School' principals do incredible work. Some go to houses, driving their own vehicles, in order to try to find out how they can help children come to school. Absenteeism is particularly acute where there is disadvantage. That is why reducing educational underachievement through the RAISE programme, with its whole-community response that is aimed at getting people into school, will also have a benefit. If you are not in school or in the right setting — what other settings are there that can be useful in trying to encourage young people to engage in educational programmes? — you are not getting educated.

Where the programmes operate in communities, all the schools in those communities will be able to participate to varying degrees. Let us get the programme boards set up. A coordinator will be appointed in each area, and that will be an important role that will be co-designed in the communities. Templates can be followed, but, ultimately, we need local communities to take some ownership of the programme so that they can be part of it. It is about a whole-community response. In that respect, if a scheme is operating in an area, all the school settings should be able to participate in it.

We are significantly funded through the Treasury because of Northern Ireland's place in the United Kingdom, which is something that I welcome. Could we have more? Yes, we could. We are making that case, and ministerial colleagues have made it, to the Treasury. The interim fiscal framework helped with additional funding. As Minister, I still need to get on with the job with the resources that I have available to me, as challenging as that is. It will be difficult. Where there can be additional sources of funding that will benefit the children and young people of Northern Ireland, we should avail ourselves of them. If, as in this case, that comes from the Shared Island Fund, let us take that funding. The Government in the Republic of Ireland did not ask for any strings to be attached to the funding and did not ask to be part of the design of the programme; it was left entirely to the Department of Education and this Government to do that. If the Republic of Ireland's Government are able to support that, I welcome that. If there are opportunities for further support from the Republic of Ireland and through seeking to get the proper funding formula in place in the United Kingdom context, we need to do that and make sure that we properly resource our public services.

2,348 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:28 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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