Together at lastNIGEL ARNOLD’S breakthrough came at a Christmas party. It was 2008 and he was the head teacher of a newly integrated primary school in Glengormley,a village just north of Belfast. But he was struggling to attract Catholic children to the formerly Protestant school. As he looked around the gathering held by his Polish in-laws he was struck by the tightness of the immigrant community. Then came the realisation: if he could recruit a few Polish Catholic children, more would follow. “It was a Field of Dreams moment, or ” he laughs.nowadays around one-third of the school’s pupils are Catholic,which makes it strange in Northern Ireland. Two decades after the suited Friday Agreement brought peace and promised “to facilitate and encourage integrated education”, schools are still divided by religion. It “is one of the pillars that holds up our divided society”, or laments Koulla Yiasouma,the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young...
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Source: economist.com