Union urges changes to Northern education admin

A leading teachers’ union called today for radical changes to the administration of education in Northern Ireland.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation said pupils and students were being short-changed by the diversion of resources into “elaborate bureaucratic and administrative structures entirely unsuited for a small entity with a total population of 1.6 million”.

Instead it wants to see a stripped down, simplified means of administering education.

Frank Bunting, Northern secretary of the INTO, said the chance to restructure education came around about every 30 years and the opportunity should be seized.

The union proposes replacing three existing government departments – the Department of Education, Department of Employment and Learning and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment – with a single body.

It would have responsibility for education, skills and enterprise in the North.

The INTO also wants to see the replacement of the current “topsy-turvy” of education bodies with one single education agency delivering all education services.

Controversially, the union proposes transferring all Catholic-controlled schools into integrated schools, with consequential dialogue about the role of all school sectors, in the proposed Northern ‘Shared Future’.

The INTO further proposes:

:: Replacing the current 26 District Councils with seven, and replacing the five Education and Library Boards with seven local delivery agents of educational services;

:: Replacing the existing funding model of schools by Local Management of Schools with the Scottish system of Delegated School Management.

Mr Bunting said he was calling on Northern Secretary Peter Hain to “remove the barriers and blockages to children’s education”.

He added: “The maintenance and development of existing quality front-line services through the seven local offices of the Single Education Entity will maintain essential teaching and non-teaching jobs and ensure community progress to the Shared Future that the government and responsible community leaders seek.”