Sinister in Ulster

Press THE Inner-London Education Authority is to consider lodging a formal complaint with the Press Council about coverage of events at Holland Park Compre!IDkr IRELAND is becoming a testing ground for ideas a measures which the Tories may soon be tempted try out in the rest of Britain.

The eyes of Fleet St reporters have recently been filled with such moves as the declaration of emergency powers, but there may be other, less dramatic but more insidious, developments afoot.

For example while the province and the educatio starved of money the N Irelanc Community Relations Commis sion this week £2,000 grant for a research project into civil education.

A strange time to choose one might think. But upon examination the nature of the research reveals itself to be, potentially, of key importance.

IAN YEATS The researchers will probe at what age social attitudes are formed in children and which are the more influential educators; how and when children become aware of group differences and conflicts and what influence on attitude results from differences in age, social background, type of school and subject matter studied.

The stated aim of the work is to 'attempt means for examining the attitudes children society and to evaluate the influence of the school among other educators in the formation of the civil outlook of children'.

Rivalling all this in order of significance is the fact that the project is not to take the usual two, three or five years but will be finished by next Septemberat the start of the next school year.

No accident It cannot be accidental that in the middle of a period of unrivalled working-class unrest in Ulster the government has decided to gather information which could form the basis of policies aimed at curtailing it.

This can be the only noteworthy explanation the obsession with civic attitudes.

These policies could be aimed at teachers who inculcate 'uncivil' attitudes, against syllabuses as a means of limiting the flow 'uncivil' information and could also be used as a means of dividing and isolating children in communal schools.

Education chiefs have been very busy in the province and this week has also seen the announcement of a special course in civic affairs and community relations to be run in Antrim next spring.

Communities

The Stormont government "The course will deal with problems of mixed communities within nations and will examine the roots of prejudice in Great Britain and N Ireland and in selected areas of the Commonwealth and the wider world.' No one would deny that the experiences of British imperialism in the Commonwealth and wider world in handling community problems might appear to Tories and right wingers to have applicability at home.