€1 million for projects to address literacy and digital literacy needs

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris has announced the opening of a €1 million funding call for new projects to help address unmet literacy needs.

The Adult Literacy for Life (ALL) Strategy aims to address unmet literacy, numeracy and digital literacy needs for people across Ireland.

€1 million is available for grants under the Collaboration & Innovation Fund and public, non-profit, community and voluntary organisations are all eligible to apply to a maximum of €50,000 each.

Skills to engage in society

Speaking at the launch of the funding call, Minister Harris said:

“We all want to live in an Ireland where every adult has the necessary skills to fully engage in society and realise their full potential.

“This fund will help support organisations carry out vital work with people on financial, or health literacy, digital skills or how to read and write.

“I strongly encourage all of these critically important groups and organisations around the country to apply for the €50,000 grants available. I am looking forward to seeing what exciting, rewarding and important work comes out of it.”

Closing date 14 April

Guidelines for applications can be found online at adultliteracyforlife.ie and the closing date for applications is 5pm on Friday 14 April 2023.

Director of the ALL National Programme Office in SOLAS, Yvonne McKenna said: “With this funding call, we’re looking for truly collaborative and innovative projects and groups to support – we know that working together is how we best support those with oftentimes complex unmet literacy needs.

“One important condition of this new Fund is that there must be a minimum of 2 organisations per application – really showcasing genuine and meaningful collaboration on the ground and how we all work best together for the most powerful learner-focused outcomes.”

The Adult Literacy for Life (ALL) Strategy was launched in September 2021 and sets out an ambitious 10-year strategy to transform adult literacy, numeracy and digital literacy in Ireland.

The ALL Strategy takes a whole-of-society approach to creating awareness of the importance of literacy and is a key step in achieving Ireland’s goal of a fully inclusive and equitable society and economy. The ALL Strategy aims to ensure that every adult has the necessary literacy, numeracy and digital literacy to fully engage in society and realise their potential.

The ALL Strategy is overseen by a Cross-Government Implementation Group. An ALL National Programme Office sits within SOLAS to oversee implementation of the Strategy, overseen by Director Yvonne McKenna, and working together with 16 Regional Literacy Coordinators corresponding to the 16 Education & Training Boards nationwide.

The ALL Strategy makes a number of commitments, including:

·    increasing the number of learners engaging with literacy and language support by 20,000 over the first half of the strategy’s lifetime

·    reduce the number of adults in Ireland with unmet literacy needs, from 18% to 7%

·    reduce the number of adults in Ireland with unmet numeracy needs from 25% to 12%

·    reduce the share of adults in Ireland without basic digital skills from 47% to 20%