While the London government was well aware that this was happening, it chose to leave Northern Ireland to run its own affairs. Throughout its period of direct rule, the UK government avoided making any major economic and social changes to the way Northern Ireland was run. The North’s education system constitutes one of its most serious policy failures, negatively affecting its social and economic wellbeing, and incomes. While the North was ahead of the South in introducing free secondary education in 1947, its education system now lags far behind the Republic’s. If unification is to happen, the North must first deal with the serious economic and social failings that are under its control.
