Ulster Unionist Education Spokesperson Danny Kinahan has praised the generosity of Atlantic Philanthropies after it was announced that they were making a further contribution of £25m towards shared education and early years, and supporting people with dementia and their carers.
The South Antrim MLA said;
“Expanding and improving shared education is essential if Northern Ireland is ever to achieve the vision of a single education system where children of all faiths and none are educated together. This additional money will hopefully rejuvenate the efforts to ensure that no longer will the majority of our children grow up and progress through education having little or no interaction with young people from different communities.
“Unfortunately we remain to be convinced that the Education Minister or his Party are prepared to genuinely accept the real opportunities presented by shared education. They are content to carry on propping up our divided education structures, as can be demonstrated through the shoring up of the differing school sectors through the area planning process.
“The Department of Education has not been funding the Shared Education Programme over the last three years for instance – instead schools had to rely on previous money from Atlantic Philanthropies. Whilst the Minister may have been forced into reluctantly going down the route of developing shared plans, even he will recognise that selecting only 3 three shared education projects in July out of only 16 applications out of 1,200 schools overall is only a drop in the ocean.”
“Whilst the money is to be warmly welcomed it is my firm belief that Northern Ireland cannot keep relying predominantly on the generosity of others to deliver the real change which our education system needs.”