CENTRE for CROSS BORDER STUDIES

This is a three-year project to bring together a group of primary schools in border areas in both jurisdictions which have suffered from the Northern Ireland conflict so that they can study a key feature or area in their locality by looking at it historically and geographically, and then explore it in the company of their cross-border partner schools. This project will help the children and teachers involved to appreciate the significance of their environment; learn about people form different cultural, social and religious perspectives in the other jurisdiction; fulfil aspects of the history and geography curricula, North and South; and put to practical use what they learn in Education for Mutual Understanding in the North and the new education for diversity programme in the South. It will complement the new emphases in both primary curricula on activity-based learning and skills acquisition, and will feed into the new interest in local studies, which crosses all jurisdictional and communal barriers.

This work will build on the experience of the Pride of Our Place: Phase I - a small North/South co-operation project run by the Southern Education and Library Board and the Department of Education and Science for one year in 2000, involving eight schools. Although its evaluation found that it had 'built strong and successful cross-border links', it was discontinued when the officials involved moved to other posts and responsibilities.