Supporting adults with literacy needs
The Minister of State at the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Marian Harkin, has announced funding of €1 million to support adults with unmet literacy, numeracy and digital literacy needs. The 2026 fund will also support family and financial literacy projects.
Over 700,000 people in Ireland have unmet literacy needs. In today’s world, literacy is much more than reading and writing and many people have unmet numeracy, digital and financial literacy needs. This means that daily tasks can be a struggle such as filling in a form, reading instructions on medicines, adding up a bill, helping children with homework or searching online for information.
Announcing the Fund, Minister Harkin said: “I am delighted to launch the 2026 Collaboration and Innovation Fund. Over the last number of years, it has supported hundreds of innovative projects in communities across Ireland who are doing vital work to create a more literacy friendly and equal society.
“This Government believes that literacy is a human right as it allows each of us to fully engage in society as active citizens. That is why promoting the Adult Literacy for Life Strategy is a key priority for my Department, SOLAS and the Education and Training Boards. Literacy allows us to engage effectively with others while enabling us to understand, use, and act on information, to access services and use technology. Therefore, it is everyone’s responsibility to support people with unmet literacy needs – whether that’s at home, at work, or in our communities.
“As a parent and a former secondary school teacher, I understand the importance of literacy in the home and strongly welcome this year’s emphasis on family literacy projects. The proposed activities will help parents and children to enhance their literacy practices through activities such as reading together, storytelling, and playing games. These activities, combining fun and learning, will foster children’s language and literacy development.”
The Collaboration and Innovation Fund is managed by the Adult Literacy for Life (ALL) National Programme Office in SOLAS. Its purpose is to support a more inclusive and equal society by awarding collaborative and innovative projects that support adults with unmet literacy, numeracy and digital literacy needs.
The 2026 fund will focus on family and financial literacy:
- Part of the fund this year will be made available to new and innovative family literacy projects. These projects are focused on supporting parents with literacy needs through fun and rich literacy activities that encourage their own and their children’s language and literacy development, such as reading a book, telling stories and playing games.
For a second year, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) is supporting the financial literacy strand of the Collaboration and Innovation Fund with a contribution of €200,000.
Yvonne McKenna, Director of the ALL Programme Office at SOLAS, said: "The fund enables the delivery of a vibrant and diverse range of programmes that are helping to change the lives of adults with unmet literacy needs in Ireland. The fund is aimed at those most at risk of having literacy needs including older adults, members of the Traveller community, migrants, people parenting alone, and early school leavers.”
FURTHER INFORMATION
The closing date for the fund is 12 noon on Thursday, January 22. Further information about last year’s projects is available at: https://www.adultliteracyforlife.ie/fund/