Back to basics [IrishTimes]
- Published: 17 May 2011
THE EDUCATION PROFILE INEZ BAILEY, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ADULT LITERACY AGENCY: When she started work in adult literacy, Inez Bailey thought she would be dealing with a shrinking population – that’s not how it has turned out, writes GRAINNE FALLER
IRISH EDUCATION was given a massive wake-up call late last year when the OECD/Pisa survey revealed that Ireland is failing to meet the most basic of educational standards. On reading levels, the survey found that Ireland had slipped from fifth place in 2000 to 17th place, the sharpest decline among 39 countries surveyed.
Shockingly, almost a quarter of 15 year-old boys failed to achieve the level of literacy required to simply function in society.
“Those 15 year-olds were surveyed in 2009, so most are probably not in education anymore,” says Inez Bailey, director of the National Adult Literacy Agency (Nala). “We’re all talking about how to improve standards for children coming up through the system but nobody has really asked what can be done for the people who have already been failed.”
At the helm of Nala since 1997, Bailey has overseen enormous change in the approach to adult literacy issues in Ireland. “I started working there as a researcher in 1995,” she says. “It was a very bleak time in terms of resources and even awareness of the problems.”
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
