"Integrated education won't solve the problems of Northern Ireland," says Marie Cowan, "but it will lead to much more open and tolerant young people."
Cowan is well-placed to offer such a hopeful judgment. For three years, she's been running a school in which Catholic and Protestant children have been absorbing perhaps the most important lesson to be learned in this divided province: how to live, work and play together.Oakgrove Integrated College in Londonderry opened in 1992. Institutions such as this are in a tiny minority in Northern Ireland, where most children are educated in Catholic or Protestant schools.
But their number is growing. With four opening last month, there are now 27, educating around 2 percent of the school population.
All the schools aim to get a reasonable balance of pupils and staff from the two communities. Of Oakgrove's 400 pupils, 60 percent are from Catholic backgrounds, 40 percent from Protestant. Teachers and other members of the staff are mixed in similar proportions.
The schools' essential aim is to break down the prejudice and the fears, based on ignorance, that have for so long fueled divisions and hostilities between the two communities.
But while they teach an understanding of and respect for different cultures and traditions, tensions inevitably arise.
"We do get sectarian name-calling and problems with opposing flags and Celtic and Rangers badges," Cowan admits. "But we try to confront and talk about problems, not hide them. As the children grow older, they mingle a lot more successfully, and that sort of behavior just fades away. By the third year, they've forgotten their differences; they're just friends."
Children talk eloquently about their changing attitudes.
John and Damien went to all-Catholic primary schools.
"You never knew any Protestants, so you thought they were aliens," John says. "But you come here and find that they're just normal people. We should accept each other. It's the person inside that counts."
Damien is more succinct: "We were brought up to hate Protestants - and it's all lies."
Tricia and Joanne attended an all-Protestant school.
"You didn't meet up with people from different religions, so we wouldn't speak to Catholics," Tricia recalls. "You wanted to, but you were frightened."
Joanne adds: "It was all one-sided. You never got a different view. Here you get all sides, all aspects. And we're living proof that you can mix together."
Oakgrove's basic curriculum is much the same as that of other schools but with different emphases. Boys play both Gaelic football and rugby. The different faiths are represented in assembly. Irish is a language option alongside German and Spanish, and in English and history, books are chosen to allow issues relating to the "Troubles" to be discussed.
Evidence of the schools' impact was provided by a survey of students at Queen's University in Belfast, of whom only 12 percent had friends from the other community. A comparative survey showed that with past pupils of the same age from Lagan College, the first integrated secondary school to open in 1981, the figure was 44 percent.
One problem facing these schools is the widespread belief that they're essentially middle-class. In fact, they have always drawn pupils from a wide social spectrum.
Oakgrove College, a secondary school, is not atypical: 25 percent of pupils receive free school meals, and many come from housing estates where there has been violence.
There has been opposition from other schools. In Oakgrove's case, a deputation of principals went to the government to argue that such a school was not needed.
The Catholic Church has generally opposed the idea: one priest complained about a prospectus for an integrated school being handed out in a Catholic primary school.
The integrated schools have all been started by parents, a growing number of whom, according to the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education, are interested in the movement.
In Northern Ireland, the curriculum includes a component called Education for Mutual Understanding.