PRESS RELEASE ISSUED BY HARTE COYLE COLLINS, SOLICITORS & ADVOCATES
SCHOOL CHILDREN CHALLENGE THE RAISE PROGRAM 2025 METHODOLOGY FOR ALLOCATION OF FUNDING
ISSUED 20TH JUNE 2025
High Court judge Mr Justice Humphreys granted leave in 2 anonymized judicial review challenges this week on Wednesday 17th June 2025.
The 2 child Applicants, known as JR 338 and 339, are challenging the selection methodology that both the Minister for Education, Mr Paul Givan, and the Department of Education has applied in selecting locations to determine where funding will be allocated.
The challenge relates to the objects of the Raise Program, a program introduced to reduce educational disadvantage for the most educationally deprived /disadvantaged children. This scheme was announced by the Minister in May 2024 following a report from an expert panel on educational underachievement in Northern Ireland.
The Raise program (Raising Achievement in Integrated Schools and Education) previously attracted criticism with some claiming that it is failing to effectively address educational underachievement and has a lack of transparency in its targeting of schools. These concerns about the criteria for school eligibility, include some principals stating that schools in deprived areas are being excluded from funding while others, including private fee-paying schools, are included.
The legal challenge is being taken on behalf of 2 school children, one from Belfast and one from Derry, challenges the selection methodology used by the Minister for Education and Department of Education to identify locations, known as Specific Output Areas (SOAs) to which funding will be allocated.
Lawyers on behalf of the 2 child Applicants argue that the methodology used means that those who have suffered the greatest educational disadvantage might not necessarily benefit. The selection methodology selects a number of locations (Super Output Areas) which are not in the topmost deprived areas identified as objective levels of deprivation in education skills and training by NISRA ,
Lawyers for the Applicants say that the identification of some of these areas is discriminatory, discriminating against Catholics in urban areas, and against children actually suffering significant educational disadvantage.
The 2 child Applicants also argue that the overweighting criteria used in the program on the attainment of GCSE acts so as to discriminate against Catholics and girls.
Leave was granted in the High Court in Belfast on Wednesday 17th June 2025 and the cases have been set for full hearing on the 8th and 9th September 2025.
The Department of Education has confirmed that funding will not be released prior to 30 the September 2025.
Nichola Harte, solicitor, acting for the 2 child Applicants, said today;
“This is an important legal challenge for all school children and across all areas of Northern Ireland, in particular for educationally deprived and disadvantaged schoolchildren . The purpose of the challenge is to ensure transparency in the selection process for funding purposes. Schools in Northern Ireland are in financial crisis at both primary and secondary levels. Any allocation of resources under the RAISE program must be fair, transparent. The High Court granted leave for careful judicial scrutiny of the methodology of the program is lawful.”
The 2 Applicants are represented by solicitors Nichola Harte of Harte Coyle Collins, Solicitors & Advocates, Belfast, with senior barrister Karen Quinlivan K.C. and junior barrister Aidan McGowan B.L.
20th June 2025
Contact
nharte@hartecoylecollins.com
02890-278227
