I went to a co religion grammar school in the late seventies , I don’t see what the big fuss is all about 
You are right. There are several of what you call 'co-religion' schools [grammar and non-grammar] developing across NI. This is what I referred to as 'integrated' or 'shared' education. It is an organic and natural enough combination of pupils, parents, resources and finance factors etc. that evolve and derive from local circumstances and I note that you refer to it as a
'co-religion' school where clearly people opted to go and preferred to go. Preference is different from choice and I won't go into that here.
Parental preference is clearly demonstrated in bums on seats in terms of the sectors their children attend. Foisting a system of
'integrated schools' upon people is very different from allowing the development of 'shared' or 'integrated education'. 40+ years of existence; preferential promotion by statutory statement; advertising; bland statements by non-entities with 'celebrity' status; some very genuinely committed and honourable people; preferential visits by the great and the good; successive polls with soft 'yes' questions; a lot of overt political support [Alliance and others] as well as some tacit support [or at least broad acquiescence or indifference] by SF for integrated education. Net result - 7% of children at integrated schools. I think that illustrates that there are more things at work in parental choice than mere proximity and easy option for the nearest school.
Our system is not failing or unravelling because of the religious make-up of it schools [and even our integrated schools subscribe to Christian as opposed to neutral or simply secular ethos], it is unravelling because of Tory cuts and the in-built fault lines in its addiction to stark socio-economic division by an outmoded system of academic selection. The latter, by the way, is the singular religious failure in our collective system; true Christianity implies equal opportunity, equal access, equal facilities etc. The Churches [all of them] aren't too fussed on enacting the counter-cultural views when well-heeled, articulate and powerful middle-class parents luxuriate in their little selective system that for decades upon decades upon decades has been churning out a long, long tail of underachievement - the Emperor's new clothes syndrome operates until the negative impacts express themselves in ways that will thoroughly disadvantage all of society.
That is the big question. But by all means, let us pretend that the faults lie with the Catholic schools or the Controlled Schools and leave all the others out of it!
