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We believe everyone should have the literacy skills to succeed in life.
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Vision for literacy
Vision for literacy is a national framework for action to improve literacy levels in Ireland and to create a more equal society.
The aim is that everyone has the literacy skills to meet their needs, and that literacy is valued and supported at every level of society.
What is the Vision for literacy pledge?
The Vision for literacy pledge calls on government, businesses and organisations to pledge to support the national framework through meaningful action.
Each supporter will pledge to address literacy problems within their workforce, in the local communities where they work, and on a national level to help close the nation’s literacy gap and create a more equal society.
Why is this important?
Low literacy costs. High literacy pays.
In Ireland, 550,000 adults have low levels of literacy. Even more have low levels of numeracy. This has a devastating impact on individuals, families and communities. It also costs public services, businesses and the economy millions each year.
This campaign is important because it will help people gain the necessary skills to achieve their personal, social and employment aspirations so that they can take part fully in society.
It will also save the taxpayer money.
What will Vision for literacy achieve?
The OECD report that the average literacy score in a given population is a better indicator of growth than one based solely on the percentage of the population with very high literacy scores
The Vision for literacy national framework will achieve a whole-of-Government and whole-of-society response to the literacy issue in Ireland.
Simply put, we have two objectives:
- At an individual level, we want to help people improve their literacy.
- A societal level, we want organisations to be full accessible to people.
How can organisations help people improve their literacy?
Organisations can raise awareness of learning opportunities and services. They can promote the benefits of adult education and lifelong learning with their workforces and communities where they are based. They can raise awareness of services, offer time off for training, bespoke learning opportunities, childcare for parents who want to learn or develop and invest in new ways of learning.
How can organisations become fully accessible to people?
Organisations can adopt a whole-organisation approach to literacy. Remember, literacy and numeracy difficulties can often exclude people from carrying out a range of everyday activities or successfully interacting with public and private services. Organisations can address this by doing audits of their environments and identifying literacy barriers, using plain English in their communications and providing literacy awareness training to their staff.
To find out more about how you can pledge support to our Vision for Literacy pledge please email hryan@nala.ie.
Thank you.
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