Plans unveiled for 10 shared campuses

Ambitious plans to move secondary schools from different sectors onto the same site form part of government’s new shared future proposals. There is no detail on where these new campuses will be located, however.

Northern Ireland has multiple non-grammar secondary school sectors – Catholic-maintained, state-controlled, Irish-medium and integrated.

While many of them take part in shared education projects with schools in other sectors, there have been no major moves to progress further. Coalitions between Catholic and non-faith schools were largely ignored in the recent Northern Ireland-wide “area planning” exercise.

In addition, the only shared campus project on the table at present has received little support from the schools it has been designed to benefit. Building work is yet to commence, five years after the Lisanelly project was first mooted. About £130 million will be spent converting the former military barracks into a massive shared campus involving six schools.