A Galway VEC literacy project aimed at the fishing industry is among the shortlisted nominees of the 2008 Adults Continuing Education awards.
Entitled “A B Sea” the local project is aimed at early school leavers involved in the fishing industry. Galway VEC plans to collect qualitative data through one-to-one interviews with key people in fishing communities locally and nationally.
Research will be conducted to identify the difficulties encountered by fishermen which in turn will help the organisation design its programmes and resource pack more effectively.
The awards, now in their fourth year, are supported by the National Adult Literacy Agency and EBS Building Society. For the second year running EBS is supporting the awards with a €20,000 donation in research grants for the winning entries.
A diverse range of projects supporting adult basic education from across the country were nominated for the awards. All projects focused on new and innovative approaches used to help adults improve their literacy and numeracy skills. Five of the literacy projects nominated have been shortlisted by a panel of judges for this year’s ACE Award’s final.
The five shortlisted nominations have been awarded €2,000 each to carry out further research on the project they submitted. Following final evaluation one overall winner will be announced and will receive a grant for €10,000 to develop and publish their research.
Aidan Power, head of marketing at EBS Building Society, says each year his organisation notices a change in the type of projects it receives.
“In four years the thoughts behind adult basic education and the development of a number of initiatives have brought adult literacy and education to the forefront of people’s minds. The projects we have shortlisted this year are very practical and we believe could have a real impact on their communities. I congratulate all of them on getting this far and encourage them to use their €2,000 grant as best they can.”
The change of focus for this year’s awards has been designed to help increase access to new methodologies and approaches to learning that are being deployed by individual teaching groups, he says.
“The provision of grant aid to further develop these individual projects will broaden access to, and awareness of, projects that are delivering results on the ground. We feel that this new approach will help to enhance the overall experience and effectiveness of results for all learners and trainers and very much look forward to seeing the outcome of the final round of this year’s awards programme.”
