A call to action: educational disadvantage and the Protestant ... - Nicva

Educational Disadvantage and the Protestant Working Class
A Call to Action
Introduction
by Dawn Purvis MLA
This Call to Action has arisen out of the work of
a small Working Group of teachers, educational
administrators, academics, community activists
and interested others who have focused on the
statistical fact of growing under-performance
of Protestant working class young people and,
in particular, Protestant working class males.
The remit that this Working Group set itself has
been to:
a) Consider existing research and evidence on
the issue of the underperformance of
Protestant working class young people and,
in particular, Protestant working class males;
b) To seek views or short submissions from
political parties, educational interests, trade
unions, business, the voluntary and
community sector and others on what
precisely needs to be done to address the
issue;
c) To consider UK, European and international
experience on tackling communal, ethnic or
racial underperformance and international
good practice; and,
d) To report on recommendations (by way of
a Call to Action) by March 2011.
The question arises, Why just look at educational
disadvantage in one community? There is
undoubtedly educational disadvantage within
all communities and much of what is concluded
here is important across all of the groups that
constitute our society. However, there is now
an established and increasing trend in which the
educational non-progressor in Northern Ireland
is most likely to be a Protestant working class
male. 1 Our work has tried to address why this
is the case.
Additionally:
• Political arrangements in Northern Ireland
are communitarian, and the majority of
Unionist opinion finds the issue of underachievement
difficult (or inconvenient) to
deal with;
• Education in Northern Ireland is itself
significantly segregated along communal
lines;
• The governance of schools attended
predominantly by Protestants is different,
with perhaps less emphasis placed on
driving achievement and standards, or on
challenging under-performance;
• The community dynamics and
organisational mores differ significantly in
the Protestant community, as does the
historical emphasis and value put on
education within the working class; and,
• There appears to be a tendency towards
elitism, and socially imbalanced pupil
intakes within schools predominantly
attended by Protestants.
This Working Group has no statutory authority,
or official remit. It was organized among
interested and concerned individuals who felt
that if such problems of educational
disadvantage were not addressed there would
be significant socio-economic and political
ramifications. The group, standing solely on
their own respective records and reputations,
have aimed to highlight a problem and the
reasons for it and in so doing contend that it is
for others with the resources and influence to
challenge a significant inequity.
Given the sensitivity of inter-communal
competition within Northern Ireland, it was not
the intention of this initiative to enter into, or
promote, any sort of zero-sum competition for
1 University of Ulster, report to OFMDFM on Participation Rates in Further and Higher Education, 2001
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