Time: 12.00 noon
On Tuesday 31 March, Mr Sean Haughey, T.D., Minister for Lifelong Learning will officially launch NALA’s new Literacy Advisory Service. The new service aims to help businesses and organisations take account of literacy issues and remove literacy-related barriers to customers accessing their services or to staff joining or moving up within their organisation. In a time of financial constraints, it is hoped that the service will provide practical, effective and value-for-money support for organisations to grow and remain competitive.
To mark the new service, NALA is launching an easy-to-read guide called, ‘Right from the start’. This guide outlines why it is worth taking account of literacy difficulties and presents some good practice guidelines on responding to the needs of customers and current or potential staff who may have difficulties with reading and writing.
The launch is taking place at 12 noon in the Winter Hall, Royal College of Physicians on Tuesday 31 March, where a number of speakers from the public and private sector will discuss how they have successfully implemented literacy-friendly approaches within their organisations. The event is aimed at those working in the areas of human resources, training, customer service and/or communications. We would be delighted if you could attend this event. If you think that it might be of interest to any of your colleagues, they are also welcome to attend.
Location: The Clock Tower, Department of Education and Science, Marlborough Street, Dublin 1
Time: 10.30am to 4pm
The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the National Adult Literacy Agency is an essential networking and decision making event for members.
A sneak preview of the eagerly anticipated second series of 'Written Off?' will also be shown to NALA's members at this event!
Annual NALA membership runs from 1 January to 31 December. Members play an important role in both NALA's strategic direction and the running of NALA. We would like to encourage all members to attend the AGM where you will be able to:
To book online go to the events section on www.nala.ie. If you would like more information please contact NALA on 01 855 4332 or email literacy@nala.ie
NALA is an independent membership organisation, concerned with developing policy, advocacy, research and offering advisory services in adult literacy work in Ireland. NALA has campaigned for the recognition of, and response to, the adult literacy issue in Ireland.
NALA values its members:
For a small fee, NALA membership is open to all people and organisations interested and involved in adult literacy development. At our annual general meeting, members elect an Executive Committee, which makes sure that our aims are put into practice. The Executive Committee includes students and tutors, Adult Literacy Organisers and people involved in adult and further education and training.
Members are encouraged to:
Members are entitled to:
Members will also have access to an exclusive member’s area on this website. Here members will be able to:
Dublin, 6 March 2009 – ‘A B Sea’, County Galway VEC’s project aimed at supporting early school leavers who are involved in the fishing industry has been awarded the prestigious 2009 EBS / NALA Adults Continuing Education (ACE) Awards for its innovative work within the sector. The County Galway VEC , West Galway Adult Learning Centre, An Fuarán, Moycullen was awarded a €10,000 research grant by EBS Building Society at an award ceremony held today at Dublin Castle. The awards, now in their fourth year, are supported by the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) and EBS Building Society.
As overall winners, Galway’s ‘A B Sea’ project developed by Teresa Gilligan, Adult Literacy Organiser and Audrey Byrne, Adult Literacy Tutor, was today given €10,000 to further develop and publish their research which identifies the specific literacy-based needs of the fishing community. Findings from the project will be shared with other adult literacy practitioners and will help to influence good practice across the adult literacy sector.
The requirement by fishermen to complete courses which meet the standards set down by the International Maritime Organisation before they can legally engage in fishing can pose a series of challenges for those with limited literacy and numeracy skills. While the majority of people involved in the fishing industry do not have any literacy difficulties, experience shows that due to early school leaving, some people reached adulthood without the literacy and numeracy skills now required within the industry. Historically, fishing was a community venture, with entire families involved in the work in many different capacities. As a result, a high value was placed on practical skills, with less importance on formal education. Findings from Galway’s ‘A B Sea’ research show the need to develop a specific programme that would address the educational needs of early school leavers involved in fishing.
The winning Galway project is targeted directly at Ireland’s fishermen to help support them in meeting the regulatory requirements of the impending EU Common Fisheries Policy. Another reason put forward in the Galway research for developing a specific course for fishermen is to address the gender imbalance in adult education in western coastal areas by encouraging greater male participation. It was also found that extra challenges exist for some fishermen in the Gaeltacht areas, where Irish is their first language.
‘AB Sea’ was selected by the judges because it helps to address a very significant challenge for (many people)early school leavers employed in the fishing industry in a timely manner. It was also felt that this project would have a significant benefit for people in the fishing industry on other parts of the island. It is hoped that the provision of the grant will ensure that VECs and other adult literacy groups in fishing towns around the country can take the project and adapt it and deliver it depending on the needs of their own communities.
Fergus Murphy, Chief Executive EBS Building Society, said: “This is the fourth year of the ACE Awards and once again EBS Building Society is delighted to be working with NALA on this very worthy initiative. EBS is very proud to be a partner of NALA. We have worked together for five years, looking at new and innovative ways to target the problem of financial literacy and family literacy.There is a lot of talk at the moment about the kinds of things that we need to do now in Ireland to ensure that the economy can get back on track in the years ahead. Ensuring that all of the people in Ireland have basic literacy skills is a fundamental starting point and it is the responsibility of all of us to look at what we can do to help ensure that this goal becomes a reality.”
“Through the ACE Award scheme our objective is that the approach that you are taking locally can be taken, shared and used by many others throughout the country - thus having a strong multiplier effect helping more and more people acquire basic literacy skills.”
Claudia Carroll, bestselling author of I Never Fancied Him Anyway and Want to know a Secret congratulated all the finalists saying: “It has been a great honour for me to be involved with this year’s ACE Awards. As a writer I have a great interest in all areas of literacy and the learning process so I was delighted when EBS and NALA asked me to get involved with this year’s awards. The standard of the final five projects on display here today was very high and made the judging process extremely difficult. I’d like to congratulate all five finalists and in particular County Galway VEC’s project for winning this year’s prestigious award. I look forward to reading the published version of their project.”
A diverse range of projects from across the country, dealing with adult basic education issues, were nominated for the awards. All projects focused on new and innovative approaches used to help adults improve their literacy and numeracy skills.Literacy projects from Maynooth, Cork and two from Dublin were also short-listed in December for this year’s ACE Award’s final. They included Dublin City Council’s Library Learning Bus; City of Cork Traveller Literacy Scheme; ‘A B Sea’, County Galway VEC; Crumlin Adult Literacy Service’s very successful Fatima Literacy Project and finally a ‘return to learning’ literacy project developed by Soilse and Maynooth NUI that supports recovering drug addicts on their progression into further education and college.
Each were awarded €2,000 to carry out further research on the project that they submitted. Following final evaluation earlier this week, ‘A B Sea’, County Galway VEC’s project was chosen as the overall winner.
Commenting today at the awards, Inez Bailey, Director, NALA said: “In the last few months the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) has been inundated with calls from Irish people wanting information on how they can improve their basic skills. A driving factor among the increase in calls seems to be the current economic climate, with the majority of calls from men who need help with reading, writing or maths and who want to know about the services available to them. Now more than ever, there needs to be a concerted effort to support people with low or no qualifications and I commend County Galway VEC for doing this through their highly innovative ‘A B Sea’ project aimed at early school leavers who are involved in the fishing industry.”
“Although there has been increased government resourcing of adult literacy work over recent years, there is never any funding available to do research. Nor are there sufficient resources to celebrate the work of thousands of literacy and numeracy practitioners nationwide who have been highly innovative in the development of new approaches and methods.Their work is aimed at enhancing the quality of tuition delivered to adults wishing to improve their skills. This is why the Awards and their focus on research grants are so invaluable to the sector and why NALA is very grateful to the EBS for their continued support”.
The ACE Awards were developed by the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) and EBS Building Society to help identify and support further study into new approaches to literacy learning for adults. Currently there are approximately 45,000 adults attending 130 VEC adult literacy services nationwide.
Copyright © Ammado AG, 2012
