ABSTRACT
The Northern Ireland educational system has been set within a framework of the roles of government, the Education and Library Boards and other agencies chiefly voluntary in character such as the Commission for Catholic Maintained Schools and the Governing Bodies Association. Policy-making in Northern Ireland is widely perceived as being more centralised than in other parts of the United Kingdom such as Scotland and Wales. Direct rule has placed the Department of Education for Northern Ireland in a unique position vis-a-vis its equivalent in the Welsh and Scottish Offices in the extent to which it acts as a regional authority unaccountable to local democratic bodies, the Education and Library Boards’ funds, the curriculum, and the framing of educational policy. The acceptance by successive governments since partition of the voluntary principle means that more than half the pupil population in Northern Ireland do not attend schools controlled by the Education and Library Boards.
