The Employment and Learning Minister, Dr. Stephen Farry, has come under fire from both sides of the Stormont parapets in recent weeks, as the debate over the future of Belfast’s teaching colleges rages on.

Dr. Farry believes the existing system of separate teacher-training is unsustainable and, following an international review panel created to put forward options for reform, has cut a £2.2 million ‘premia’ subsidy that St Mary’s and Stranmillis Colleges share annually in addition to their respective core funding.

The cut, proposed as part of the annual overall budget, comes as part of a wider aim to reform professional training in Northern Ireland, with emphasis to be taken away from the training of teachers and more given to the training of other professions. This cut has been openly attacked as it renders the colleges, already struggling for funding, even less financially viable than before.

So, what are the options for the teaching colleges of Belfast?

Education and Learning in Northern Ireland is being forced to deal with £43.5m in cuts following the announcement of the latest budget, and a streamlined, shared center of teaching excellence could be seen as a new start for a fragmented system.

So while money for the colleges remains tight, options remain to navigate their future.

The Initial Teacher Education Infrastructure Review, published by Mr. Farry in June, suggests four options: a collaborative partnership model; a two-center model with a Belfast Institute of Education; a Northern Ireland Teacher Education Federation, and a Northern Ireland Institute of Education.

Stranmillis College has publicly opted for the option to merge both colleges, and is said to be willing to enter into discussions with other institutions in Belfast to progress the idea to reality.

It should be noted, however, that one of the four options includes St Mary’s keeping its current status, and Peter Finn, principal of St Mary’s University College has said it will not give up its autonomy nor its site on the Falls Road.  He has also said that St Mary’s would not be coerced into a single college, and has accused Stephen Farry of having an “integrationist agenda”.

When it comes to education, Dr. Farry is known as an integrationist, and the Alliance minister has been accused of trying to manipulate the budget to circumvent the international panel’s work on the future of teacher training in order to bring forward his own political agenda.

Clearly, a situation has now arisen where politicians, educators and students will all have to make compromises in order for teaching education to be reformed. But if done correctly, it could lead to a solution in the best interests of those that education benefits most – the students that our teachers work to help progress.

But why is integration of teacher training so strongly opposed?

As anybody who has lived in Belfast will know, politics, linked innately with religion in Northern Ireland, serves to bring communities together, but in this country also holds great power to divide.

What does it mean for the children and young adults of Northern Ireland if even DEL and the teachers that educate them can’t work together to make separate cultural identities work harmoniously? We shouldn’t let the fractious nature of our past define how we educate children; we should educate them the very highest standard available.  There is a place in education for religion, and that should, and could, be accommodated.

With that being said, all religious faith is choice, no matter how deeply ingrained, and this should be reflected in our education system. Integrated schooling, where no one religion takes any precedence over another, is amongst the best long-term steps to educating tolerance in future generations and ultimately ending sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.

While religious education in state schools would continue to promote cultural understanding of all religions, in this way Christianity would take its rightful place in society as a choice. In an ideal Northern Ireland, public education on all levels should be integrated, with any specialist education a private choice for parents that wish to educate their children in line with a certain set of beliefs.

It is, admittedly, unrealistic to suggest that the privatization of religious-based education will happen any time soon, but in the interim the opportunity to integrate pupils from different religious backgrounds and to integrate teaching would be a first step.

With regards to the proposed integration, the merging of two student bodies, while ultimately possible, could not be expected to be entirely smooth. Both Stranmillis and St Mary’s have distinct cultural identities, more so than Belfast’s other teaching colleges. This is largely related to a religious ethos carried at each college, and as a result in recent months a political stand-off has developed between First Minister Peter Robinson and DEL Minister Stephen Farry over “deep scepticism” about the perceived Protestant “ethos” of Stranmillis.

Mr. Robinson has stated that he is convinced that the inevitable consequence of a merger will be “a dilution of the existing ethos Stranmillis has proudly maintained. When considered in conjunction with the absence of similar proposals relating to St Mary’s, neither I nor my party could support the proposed merger.”

A former Catholic student of Stranmillis College, who wishes to remain unnamed, was able to confirm Mr Robinson’s claim of a strong religious ethos.

“It can be quite overwhelming at times. I grew up in a neutral area, attended neutral schools and attending Stranmillis was probably the time I was most aware of not being the same denomination and feeling ‘different’. It wasn’t because I was Catholic, it was because I am nothing; I am non-practicing with no beliefs. There is a strong religious ethos at Stranmillis.”

To accommodate both these identities under one centre of teacher training would undoubtedly mean a difficult transition due to the strong religious ethos at both colleges. However, as larger institutions such as Queen’s and University of Ulster demonstrate, students from all backgrounds can study together harmoniously.

This being considered, there is further difficulty when one considers the nature of the schools in which student teachers would hopefully find their jobs.

Catholic schools are ‘controlled ‘ schools, and as this title suggests, they are both monitored and heavily funded by the Catholic Church, in which priests have a large role to play. These Catholic schools are fed by St Mary’s. For this very reason, ‘Protestant’ teachers aren’t qualified to teach in Catholic schools.

If a merger were to happen between the teaching colleges of Belfast, the teaching of religious education could be split to accommodate the teaching of different faiths. As more and more schools begin to integrate in Northern Ireland, this would become more important as schools that promote faith would seek to defend their identity.

The answer to this problem would be to eventually secularise the curriculum in public schools, with a system similar to the Laic system of France. This does not mean that religious education should be removed from the public curriculum – far from it – but instead should be just one part of a curriculum, and not the entire context for an education.

While not realistic in this time of endless cuts, schools that promote one faith should ultimately one day be privatised, with parents free to choose the education that best suits their wishes for setting up the future of their children.

The obstacles to overcome our past lie in our future generations. Integrated learning is the best way to teach children tolerance and respect for all religions and creeds, so we should send a clear message by integrating those that will teach it to them.