Main article: Education in Northern Ireland
Queen's University Belfast
Unlike most areas of the United Kingdom, in the last year of primary school many children sit entrance examinations for grammar schools.
Integrated schools, which attempt to ensure a balance in enrolment between pupils of Protestant, Roman Catholic and other faiths (or none), are becoming increasingly popular, although Northern Ireland still has a primarily de facto religiously segregated education system. In the primary school sector, forty schools (8.9% of the total number) are integrated schools and thirty-two (7.2% of the total number) are Irish language-medium schools.
The main universities in Northern Ireland are Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, and the distance learning Open University which has a regional office in Belfast.