The Centre for Shared Education, together with the Social Change Initiative, hosted an international symposium on Shared Education in Belfast on 12-13 December. It brought together academics, policy makers and practitioners from Northern Ireland and a number of divided societies where shared education has been introduced or where there is interest in piloting the model.

The aim of the symposium was to reflect on the development and implementation of shared education in Northern Ireland, and to consider the transferability of the model to other divided jurisdictions. Key themes included: the impact of shared education to date; barriers and enablers; what will shared education look like in the future; and how can shared education be harnessed to prepare children and young people for life as democratic citizens in an increasingly divided and unstable world. Participants included representatives from NI and a number of Balkan States (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Hertzegovina), Israel, Cyprus and Lebanon.