The first free adult education guidance and counselling service in the history of the State was established yesterday by the Minister of State for Education, Mr Willie O'Dea. The new service will cover a range of adult and community education needs but will particularly focus on adult literacy, basic education and vocational information.
One of a range of measures recommended by the Green Paper on Adult Literacy published last year, the new service will cost £200,000 per year and should be available to the public by mid-November. It will be "piloted" in six places across the State and is expected to be expanded after a trial period which will last for one year.
Announcing the new scheme, Mr O'Dea said that it was critically important to develop support services such as guidance and counselling so that adults could gain optimum benefit from a return to education.
Under the new scheme counsellors will give advice in dealing with learning fears and provide access to expert educational services. The scheme will be linked with FAS and will help participants with initial referrals and progression of their education.
The director of the Adult Literacy Association, Ms Inez Bailey, welcomed the new service, saying: "There hasn't been a free guidance service available up to now, and with our staff here up to our eyeballs in work people haven't always had a lot of guidance to help them choose the best literacy or adult education course.
"People in adult education tend to get stuck in places and don't have long-term goals so the guidance service will make adult literacy courses more realistic."
The new guidance service comes only weeks after a UN report found that 23 per cent of people in Ireland were functionally illiterate.