Integrated Education Strategy published

The Department of Education (DE) has published Vision 2030: A Strategy for Integrated Education, 2025 to 2030 alongside an action plan. The publication and maintenance of an integrated education strategy is a statutory requirement under the Integrated Education Act (NI) 2022.

The strategy contains 19 actions to be pursued by the Department, aiming to complete five strategic aims outlined in the strategy. However, the document contains only three quantitative targets to be reached by 2030.

The Integrated Education Act (NI) 2022 states the strategy must “include an action plan, which must… include targets (including timetables) and measurable benchmarks against which the success of the strategy (including progress towards meeting targets) can be assessed.

It further states that targets and benchmarks may include percentages of pupils granted or denied their choice of education in an integrated school, the number of schools transforming into integrated schools, and number of new integrated schools established.

Key objectives

The document says that the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE) is to issue a ‘call for transformation’, particularly directed toward schools with sustainable enrolments or where transformation could provide sustainable enrolment.

The Department says this will “bring fresh visibility, prominence and momentum to transformation and act as a catalyst for the future growth of integrated education”.

The department is also set to review the objectives, funding and resources of NICIE. Formed in 1981, the public body, is an arm’s-length organisation independent from the Department. Its stated aim is to “support, advise, and offer training to integrated schools, and help schools through the transformation process”.

NICIE is also set to receive a minimum of £650,000 in departmental grand funding, with an increase of £65,000 per year, subject to available resources, to facilitate the additional actions laid out in the strategy.

However, this allocation represents a real-terms funding decrease of 32 per cent since 2010/2011. In that year, NICIE received £708,000 the Department of Education, according to a NICIE financial statement, £1.05 million in 2025 prices according to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator.

In the action plan, the department says it will commission the Innovation and Consultancy Service from the Department of Finance to review the objectives, resources and funding of NICIE.

By 2030, the department aims to reduce the gap between the percentage of first preferences for integrated education being met, currently 87 per cent, and the post-primary average of 90 per cent.

The Department will also review school governance arrangements, particularly the grant maintained integrated model and review current support services, including HR, professional learning, legal and governor support.

Maintaining the ‘integrated ethos’

Working with the NICE and other partners, the Department states it will “review the promotion and development of the integrated ethos within said schools and report on its findings”.

The Framework for Integrated Education toolkit, which offers a pathway to enable integrated schools to “develop, expand, promote and embed their integrated ethos,” is to be promoted alongside the NICIE’s Excellence in Integrated Education Award. The Department says also work with higher education institutions to includes integrated education considerations where appropriate.

The Department says it will commission research on the extent of “public understanding and knowledge” of integrated education with the goal of improvement; with the NICE publishing a communications and engagement plan focused on improving public knowledge of integrated education.

Resourcing

The department commits to providing:

• £50,000 annually to meet costs associated with engagement and surveying to assess demand, including the development of surveys, holding workshops and legal advice;
• meeting the costs of balloting parents in schools considering transformation;
• a minimum of £23,000 per annum to support schools immediately post transformation, adjusted to reflect number of schools transforming each year;
• recurrent funding to be provided when a development proposal is approved for a new integrated school. Amount of funding will be determined on a case-by-case basis; and
• £471 million to progress and deliver new build projects for integrated schools alongside £13 million for extension and refurbishment projects.

Recent political challenges

Speaking to agendaNi, Alliance Party MLA Kellie Armstrong, author of the 2022 Act accused Education Minister Paul Givan MLA of “not meeting the legal requirements of the Act”.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education tells agendaNi: “The Department has met and will continue to meet its statutory obligation within the Integrated Education Act.

“The timeline for meeting the targets set out in Vision 2030 is on track and six monthly updates on implementation of the action plan for the development of integrated education will be published on the Department’s website.”

The 2022 Act widened the definition of integrated education to include those other than Protestant or Roman Catholic, and to include ‘those who are experiencing socioeconomic deprivation and those who are not’.

The Act was stress-tested in January 2025 when Education Minister Paul Givan MLA rejected applications from two schools in Bangor wishing to transform to integrated status.

According to documents published by the Department of Education, officials had recommended that both schools transform to become integrated. These recommendations were subsequently rejected by the Minister.

Givan stated at the time: “There was not enough evidence that there would be enough Catholic pupils at each school for it to provide integrated education”.

The Act outlines that there should be an undefined “reasonable numbers of both Protestant and Roman Catholic children” in integrated schools.

In Bangor Academy, which held a ballot in which 80 per cent of parents of pupils supported integration, 57.5 per cent of pupils are Protestant and around 40 per cent are from Catholic, non-Christian or non-religious backgrounds

In a statement, the principal of Bangor Academy, Matthew Pitts, said the school community was “extremely disappointed” by the Minister’s decision.

“We have been on a significant journey as a school and the transformation process has been exciting and has helped us redefine our school’s vision for education moving forward.”