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Education and Religion in Northern Ireland
Section 4: Post Primary Schools

Secondary Intermediate schools

Secondary intermediate schools were established after the 1947 Act to provide free post-primary education for the majority of pupils in Northern Ireland. As has been already described, many pupils remained in unreorganised primary schools after this time and figure 4.1 helps to explain why this occurred. In the immediate post-war period it took some time to build the new secondary intermediate schools, with the main period of growth being in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Figure 4.1 charts the growth in these schools in the controlled (Protestant) and maintained (Catholic) sectors. There are a number of interesting patterns revealed in this graph. Firstly, the main period of rapid growth in Protestant secondary schools began in 1954 and continued until 1962. By contrast, among Catholic secondary schools the main period of rapid growth did not begin until 1958. In other words, there was a four-year time lag in the provision of secondary intermediate schooling in favour of pupils attending Protestant schools. In the longer term this may have had some impact on the employment prospects of Protestant and Catholic pupils, although it should be noted that as late as 1971 over 80% of the pupils attending secondary schools left school with no O Level or CSE qualifications.

This differential rate of growth in the secondary sector continued until 1962, at which time the rate among Protestant schools began to slow down. By contrast, among Catholic schools the rate of growth remained high so that by 1972 the number of Protestant and Catholic secondary schools had equalised. This relative parity has remained into the 1980s.

Figure 4.2 presents the number of pupils in Protestant and Catholic secondary schools from 1965 until 1985. Until the late 1970s both sectors saw a steady increase in enrolments with that of Catholic schools slowly closing the gap. It should be noted from figures 4.1 and 4.2 that while the number of schools had equalised by 1972, there still remained more pupils in Protestant secondary schools. By the end of the 1970s the decline which had been observed in primary enrolments from 1972 onwards had begun to affect the secondary schools. It should be noted from figure 4.2 that since the decline in enrolments was greater among the Protestant secondary schools, the number of pupils in Catholic schools had almost reached parity by 1985.

Figure 4.3 presents the number of teachers employed in Protestant and Catholic secondary schools from 1965 to 1985. As with the primary teachers, there was a sustained growth in teacher numbers in both sectors until falling rolls halted growth. However, in the secondary schools there appears to have been little time lag between the start of falling rolls and the reduction in teacher numbers. The figure suggests further that the number of teachers employed in Catholic secondary schools increased at a slightly higher rate compared with the Protestant schools until 1979 and, by 1985. had almost achieved parity.

Figures 4.4 to 4.6 present a comparative picture of the 'average' Protestant and Catholic secondary school. Figure 4.4 reflects the differential impact of falling rolls in the late 1970s.

Between 1965 and 1975 the average enrolment increased in both sectors, but while the average enrolment of Catholic secondary schools increased slightly between 1975 and 1985, among Protestant secondary schools the average enrolment declined.

Figure 4.5 presents the average number of teachers per school for both sectors and while this has increased over the years, the rate of increase has been higher among Catholic secondary schools. Thus in 1985 the average number of teachers employed in Catholic secondary schools was almost equal to that of Protestant secondary schools.

Despite the differential patterns of growth in terms of the average pupil enrolment and the average number of teachers per school the pupil/teacher ratio has continued to fall and has remained about equal in both sectors.


The funding of secondary schools

As in the primary schools there is a differential rate of funding for these schools. While all secondary schools receive 100% funding for recurrent expenditure, Catholic secondary schools receive only 85% capital expenditure. To date, however, there appears to be little direct evidence on the relative impact of these funding differences on the resources and facilities available in the secondary schools. In addition, there appears to be little direct evidence yet on the effect of contraction in both sectors.


Grammar schools

There are two types of grammar school in Northern Irland: controlled and voluntary. Education and Library Boards have full responsibility for controlled grammar schools, which can be considered to be Protestant schools. Voluntary grammar schools, which comprise the bulk of grammar provision in Northern Ireland, are relatively autonomous of area boards and are run by boards of governors or trustees. Controlled grammar schools receive 100% funding from the Education and Library Boards for recurrent and capital expenditure while voluntary grammar schools receive 100% for recurrent expenditure and up to 85% funding for agreed capital expenditure. Even though voluntary grammar schools are likely to have the greatest extent of religious heterogeneity in their pupil populations, compared with primary and secondary intermediate schools, there are no planned integrated voluntary grammar schools and they can be classified as Protestant or Catholic.

Unfortunately, much of the published research on grammar schools does not distinguish between Protestant and Catholic voluntary grammar schools. Research evidence which does make this distinction is largely covered in other sections of this review. Thus the concentration of preparatory departments in Protestant grammar schools has been mentioned in section 2 and the greater extent of the Protestant grammar sector and reasons for this disparity have been discussed in section 3. Section 5 will examine some evidence on curriculum differences in Protestant and Catholic grammar schools while section 6 will examine differences in pupil attainment.


Further research areas

This section raises two main issues for future research. The first concerns the impact of different funding arrangements for Protestant and Catholic secondary and grammar schools. As yet there is little evidence on this issue. At a more fundamental level, it is not possible to distinguish Protestant and Catholic grammar schools on the basis of published DENI statistics: given that grammar schools provide the most direct route to higher education and the occupational advantages accruing from this, it is important to have basic statistical information on the availability and operation of grammar schools for both communities in Northern Ireland. In other words, DENI publications should officially recognise the existence of two religious school systems in Northern Ireland and provide a basis for comparing them.