Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland, as elsewhere in the United Kingdom, the law guarantees that every school is open to all pupils regardless of religious denomination.

In practice, some schools have both Protestant and Catholic pupils, but most Catholics attend Catholic schools and most Protestant children attend state controlled schools.

There are more than 40 "integrated schools", teaching Catholic and Protestant pupils together, but this accounts for only about 3% of Northern Ireland's school population.

In many areas, segregated housing has been important in deciding who goes to which school.

Compulsory education begins at the age of four, as opposed to five in England, Wales and Scotland. Primary schools take pupils until the age of 11, and there is a selective secondary system of grammar schools and secondary modern schools.

The Department of Education for Northern Ireland has central responsibility for the administration of the service: the formulation of national policies and the maintenance of consistency in national standards. It allocates resources for education and controls the supply, training and pensions of teachers.

There are 21,000 teachers and 353,000 pupils in schools. Local government has no direct role in administering the annual budget of £1.4bn. The only local political influence on the system is through councillors appointed as members of the Education and Library Boards.

There are five Education and Library Boards covering the whole of Northern Ireland, administering the funding. In addition, the Roman Catholic sector has the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools, which looks after recruitment and policy.

Education and library boards

Each education and library board is the local education authority for its area. Boards were first appointed in 1973 as part of a general reorganisation of local government and are reappointed every four years. The members are district councillors, representatives of 'transferors of school' (churches which transferred most of their schools to the state), representatives of trustees of maintained schools and other people with an interest in the service.

Their role is one of establishing practical and advisory systems to support schools and colleges. Their duties include, among other things, ensuring that there are sufficient schools of all kinds and colleges of further education to meet the educational needs of their areas. Boards are wholly responsible for the schools and colleges under their management.

In addition, they are responsible for the costs of capital works at controlled schools, the maintenance of voluntary maintained school premises, for providing equipment in those schools and meeting their running costs through the local management of schools. Boards are also responsible for the school meals service in maintained schools.

Boards award university and other scholarships; they also identify and make provision for children with special educational needs; provide milk, free books and transport for pupils; enforce school attendance; provide curriculum advisory and support services to all schools and colleges in their area; regulate the employment of children and young people and provide recreational and youth service facilities.