The Adult Literacy for Life Programme office in SOLAS marked International Literacy Day with the launch of a literacy awareness training course at Limerick City Library on Michael Street, Limerick recently. Attending the launch, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Patrick O’Donovan announced funding of €430,000 for two new innovative and ground-breaking literacy initiatives under the government’s Adult Literacy for All Strategy.
This will include €300,000 for Media Literacy, which is very important to help people understand and think critically about the information they see in the news, ads and social media, and for spotting sources that can be trusted, recognise biases and guard against fake news. An additional €130,000 has been set aside for Family Literacy, which is central to breaking intergenerational literacy issues in families and encouraging parents to support their children’s learning.
The Adult Literacy for Life programme office in SOLAS will lead on the delivery of the two initiatives. Projects will be developed in partnership with ETBs, libraries, NALA and Media Literacy Ireland and will be aimed at: increasing media literacy through the development of eLearning programmes and media literacy hubs in local libraries, and the appointment of a dedicated family literacy lead in the Adult Literacy for Life programme office, to drive work and progress in this key area.
Minister Patrick O’Donovan with Maurice Sammon, a literacy student and ambassador at Limerick City Library, Michael Street, Limerick.
Minister O’Donovan was joined by literacy ambassadors, libraries, ETB Regional Literacy Coordinators and learners at Limerick City Library as members of the Adult Literacy for Life Programme Office at SOLAS unveiled the first of three ‘Let’s Talk About Literacy’ e-learning tools.
Speaking at the event, Minister O’Donovan said: “One of my key goals in this department is to help everyone, no matter their background, to reach their full potential. “And while in many respects Ireland is a highly educated, modern and dynamic country, as a society we must acknowledge that there are people who have missed out and been left behind. “There is no excuse for this, and it is something we are working very hard to address. “Some of these people may struggle to read and understand everyday information and some have difficulty working with numbers, while even more are simply terrified of using the internet and other technology. “Being able to critically engage with media content and to recognise and identify the massive amount of misinformation that floods our timelines on our phones and our computers is imperative. “The Adult Literacy for Life Strategy is focused on improving lives by offering people free and local courses where they can improve their literacy skills and, most importantly, give them the confidence to fully participate in society and become the best informed they can be.”
Communications Manager at SOLAS Katie O’Rourke, Director of FET at Limerick and Clare ETB, Paul Patton, Director of Adult Literacy for Life in SOLAS, Yvonne McKenna and FET Manager at Limerick and Clare ETB, Triona Lynch.
Yvonne McKenna, Director of Adult Literacy for Life in SOLAS, said: “Adult Literacy for Life aims to do two things. “Firstly, it aims to make sure that anyone with an unmet literacy need is able to access the supports they need. “Secondly, Adult Literacy for Life aims to make Irish society more accessible to people with an unmet literacy, numeracy or digital literacy need. It is really important that organisations – public, private and community and voluntary – deliver services in a literacy friendly and literacy aware way. “I want to particularly thank the participants in the online course – Catherine, Maurice, Sarah, Denis and Matt – for sharing their life and work experiences, from which we can all learn.”
The first e-learning tool is available online now at https://www.adultliteracyforlife.ie/aware/ and is designed for anyone who wants to learn more about how they can become literacy aware, particularly those dealing with the public in the course of their work. These could include staff and volunteers working in libraries, health, or public settings who would benefit from understanding how to respond sensitively to people with unmet literacy needs who interact with their service.
Additional courses are set to follow later this year in the areas of health literacy and plain language writing, which may be of particular interest to front-line workers throughout the civil, public, community and no-profit sectors to help them understand how to become more literacy-aware and literacy-friendly in their roles.
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