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Providing leadership on literacy
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Friday, 3 February, 2012 2 job vacancies with NALA The Policy officer is responsible for strategising, building and overseeing new projects and developments that will improve adult literacy.
The Internal Support Co-ordinator will develop systems and co-ordinate procedures aimed at increasing NALA’s effectiveness and efficiency. |
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Friday, 3 February, 2012 Training sessions on www.writeon.ie NALA will be running more free training sessions on www.writeon.ie in the coming months. There will be very little new in these sessions compared to what you have seen before. However, we will be outlining our plans for Level 4 learning and explaining some of the recent and upcoming changes that we are implementing based on your feedback and usability testing. If you have been using the site and have specific questions, this would be a good opportunity to have those addressed. I can also arrange for some time before or after each scheduled session if you would like to discuss issues one to one. You can contact me directly at the contact details below if you wish to arrange or discuss this. |
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Saturday, 28 January, 2012 National Forum for Adult Literacy Tutors 2012 The theme of this year’s forum will be on keeping adult literacy students actively involved in the learning process. There will be speakers from Ireland and Scotland, as well as 7 different workshops to choose from. The presentation will look at building on students’ connections with family, work and community as well as transformative learning theory. The event is free for adult literacy tutors. For more information contact Sandra Peel in NALA at speel@nala.ie
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Monday, 28 November, 2011 4 out of 10 people have difficulty understanding health information. Four out of 10 people (39%) in Ireland have inadequate or problematic health literacy according to the first ever European Health Literacy Survey. The survey was carried out by University College Dublin for Ireland and funded by the EU Commission and the Department of Health. Vulnerable groups such as those experiencing long term illness, financial hardship and those from lower-socio-economic groups were seen to have the lowest levels of health literacy. Low levels of health literacy results in poorer health, poor quality of self-care and self management of disease, ineffective use of the health service and a decreased ability to advocate for oneself in the healthcare arena. |
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Monday, 7 November, 2011 Free plain english training for the health sector Healthcare professionals and advocacy groups face particular challenges in ensuring that patients or service users can understand basic health information whether they receive it in writing, in person or over the phone. |
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Sunday, 6 November, 2011 New report sheds light on cohort of the population that is rarely acknowledged in official statistics. The report and research, the first of its kind to be conducted on this sector in Ireland, shows how over a decade, participation rates in adult literacy classes increased by over 200%, rising from 17,000 in 2000 to 55,000 adults a year in 2010. |
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Friday, 21 October, 2011 NALA Family Learning Conference NALA are hosting a Family learning event on Wednesday 30 November from 10.00am to 3.30pm in The Ashling Hotel, Parkgate Street, Dublin 7. The theme of the event is the role of storytelling in family learning and there will also be workshops on encouraging parental involvement in family learning programmes and working on family learning through music. The event starts at 10.00 am with some short presentations, followed by a question and answer session. Then there are a range of workshops before and after lunch. For further information on the event, as well as a programme and booking form, please email Fergus Dolan in NALA at fdolan@nala.ie. The cost of attending the event is €30 to NALA members and €60 to non-members. |
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Wednesday, 19 October, 2011 Future of VECs and SOLAS explained at Oireachtas Committee meeting I invite Mr. Mulligan to begin the briefing on proposals for the future development of the further education sector. |
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Thursday, 22 September, 2011 Almost 2 in 5 find it difficult to understand information from public services. Although the majority of participants had a level of understanding of terms like ‘pro rata’ and ‘in lieu of’, younger participants in particular appeared to have a lesser understanding of these words. |
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Wednesday, 21 September, 2011 Under 25s with low levels of education are at greatest risk of unemployment. Previous research has shown that 1 in 4 adults in Ireland have some level of literacy and numeracy difficulty and these are most at risk of unemployment. (OECD International Adult Literacy Survey, 1997) However according to the latest National Skills Bulletin 2011, one in two under 25s who are in the labour force and holding less than upper secondary level qualifications were unemployed in quarter 4, 2010. (Expert Group on Future Skills Needs, 2011) Furthermore one-third of all unemployed persons were early school leavers. The Skills Bulletin states that ‘Persons holding less than upper secondary qualifications continued to be at the greatest risk of unemployment. The unemployment rate for early school leavers was almost three times greater than the unemployment rate of third level graduates.’ (page 109) |
