To merge or not to merge?

Let’s try to make sense of a situation that seems to be getting a wee bit out of hand, probably because our wonderfully creative Northern Irish Politicians are involved.

General consensus from within Queen’s suggests that they really quite fancy having Stranmillis College under their control (that could have something to do with the large site that if the merge went ahead, could house the ‘Stranmillis School of Education, Q.U.B.’  - sounds lovely, doesn’t it) and at the same time, Stranmillis College requires millions to be spent on it in order to bring the facilities properly up to date.

Here’s a little bit of background:

The main provision of teacher training in Northern Ireland in terms of B.Ed type degree courses comes from Stranmillis University College & St. Mary’s University College. Alongside this, Queen’s University, The University of Ulster and The Open University offer one-year PGCE courses and it is the accepted opinion today that we are training too many young men and women as teachers, for the simple fact that there are not enough jobs for them.

In April 2008 the governing body of Stranmillis College took a unanimous decision to merge with Queen’s and since then we’ve seen a number of Unionist Politicans getting hot and bothered, but why?

“…the fact that only Stranmillis has been targeted for merger with Queen’s University causes me to wonder why?  If it is possible to contemplate alternative plans to secure the independent future of St Mary’s, why is Stranmillis being treated differently? ”  - Jim Allister MLA (Leader of the T.U.V.)

Well in 1922 Stranmillis was founded as a non-denominational institution by the Ministry of Education for Northern Ireland to provide state funded teacher training alongside the already existing St. Mary’s College, a Roman Catholic institution. Since then it has simply become the status quo that Stranmillis has trained teachers mainly for the Controlled Sector and St. Mary’s for the Maintained Sector.

As the period of Public Consultation drew to a close last year, voices from within Unionism surfaced once more asking why, if St. Mary’s was allowed to continue to operate as a Roman Catholic institution should Stranmillis face pressure to secularize and fall in line. If you’re confused, don’t worry, the fact is that whilst Stranmillis is technically a ‘non-denominational institution’, it is widely recognised to hold a Protestant Ethos, an ethos that had members of the D.U.P., T.U.V. and even the Orange Order running to its defense.

The latest development in this long escapade came a couple of days ago when T.U.V. Leader Jim Allister clashed with Employment and Learning Minister Dr. Stephen Farry at a meeting of the Stormont Executive’s Employment and Learning Committee. Mr Allister accused Dr. Farry of having, “misled the house”, claiming that the staff of Stranmillis generally supported the proposed merger with Queen’s, when in fact the feedback from the Unions, Nipsa and UCU in relation to the consultation indicated quite the opposite.

Eamonn Maillie (journalist, blogger, political editor, correspondent and respected commentator) suggests that a merger most likely won’t go ahead, despite at one point seeming like it was inevitable. He claims we’re most likely going to see St. Mary’s & Stranmillis maintain where they are as ‘Colleges of Queen’s University’ but working together as some sort of ‘synergy’…an exciting idea.

But let’s look at this with a bit of perspective, if we truly want to create the shared future for Northern Ireland the so many of our incredibly wise (sigh) Politicians keep  referring to, surely education must face a radical overhaul. Can we continue to justify training teachers separately and pretending there’s nothing wrong with it? Is integrated education the way forward for us?

Regarding the merger…we’ll just to have to keep our eyes peeled, share your thoughts on any of what I’ve touched on below.

P.S. If anything I’ve said comes across as provocative, that was the point. Thinking is healthy.