Few things could be more outrageous, damaging and at the same time indicative of the divisive state of Northern Ireland society, than the announcement that the Strule ‘Shared’ Education Campus in Omagh is to go ahead.
Hailed by all the major parties in the Assembly as “a pioneering project that will provide a state-of-the-art shared centre of learning”, it is in fact no such thing. It is just another, expensive, con trick to sustain the illusion that children here are being educated together. They are not. ‘Shared’ is not Integrated.
The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 committed to” facilitate and encourage integrated education…” Since then, both Sinn Fein and the DUP have been instrumental in sidelining the progression of integrated education and have connived to set back the integrated education project through disingenuous schemes such as their ‘shared education’ ploy.
‘Shared’ education is not Integrated education. It was never meant to be. Instead, it is a deliberate and reprehensible dodge which confirms, consolidates and copper-fastens divisions in our society at the expense of the integrated education of yet another generation of children.
No progress on Poverty
While attending sporting events, swapping football shirts and presenting ‘Genocide Joe’ Biden with bowls of shamrock were dominating the news headlines, a grimmer reality was, once again, passing under reported.
A new report into child poverty has found that it is directly affecting around one in five children here – something the Workers Party and this website has regularly highlighted.
Child poverty is not simply a case of lack of food and resources it also has a life-long impact on children’s development, socialisation and opportunities.
Children who grow up in poverty are more likely to experience health inequalities, have lower levels of educational attainment and are more likely to experience poverty as adults.
Children in deprived areas are expected to live 11 to 15 fewer years in good health than their more well-off peers, and children receiving free school meals are twice as likely to leave school with no GCSEs.
Eight years ago, the Assembly adopted a Child Poverty Strategy but the Northern Ireland Audit office has found “a lack of significant progress on the main child poverty indicators”.
Tackling child poverty must be made a pressing political priority to alleviate the suffering, deprivation and stolen opportunities.
Only a class-based socialist society can deliver for working class people. As we engage in the immediate and necessary battles, we must always remain focussed on that objective .
Hunting with dogs: cruel, barbaric and unnecessary
Northern Ireland remains the only part of the UK where hunting animals with dogs is permitted.
Three years ago, a bill to ban the practice was debated in the Assembly but was defeated when Sinn Fein and the DUP both voted against it.
Now the League Against Cruel Sports and the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (USPCA) have launched a petition on hunting animals for sport to be made illegal.
Recent opinion polling shows that around 80% of those questioned were in favour of such a ban.
Hunting and killing wild animals with dogs is barbaric. It is cruel and unnecessary for the animals as well as for the dogs that are forced to kill them.
You can sign the petition by following the link below:
Workers Party Northern Ireland 