President Higgins highlights Literacy and Adult Education
Published: Wed 2nd Sep, 2020 | 12:11
President Higgins has made literacy and education one of the key themes of his Presidency. The President has hosted teachers and educators at Áras an Uachtaráin and visited many schools and colleges. In his speeches, the President has spoken about the need to cultivate independent thought, and to create mechanisms to ensure that everyone has access to life-long learning opportunities. He has consistently argued that schools should not be viewed as places to educate future workers, but as places to empower future engaged, informed and active citizens.
According to President Higgins, access to education is vital, not just for the empowerment and advancement of individuals, but also as a crucial pre-condition for the democratic functioning of communities and societies.
"Adult education is about empowerment. It is about acquiring the tools and skills – be they basic literacy and numeracy or more elaborate knowledge – that will enable us to think and act more consciously and critically. Indeed education is essential to the sharpening of our critical capacity, our ability to challenge the inevitability of that which is too often presented as given and unchangeable."
- President Higgins, speaking at the Dundrum Adult Education Centre, 3 February 2015
Related events:
- President Higgins makes a further donation of books to the public library services (2021)
- President Higgins lends support to “Ireland Reads” campaign (2021)
- President visits Cabra Library to mark donation of book collection to Public Library Services (2020)
- President receives representatives of National Literacy Agency (2017)
- Statement by President Michael D. Higgins marking World Literacy Day (2016)
- Speech at the Linenhall Library (2016)
- President gives the opening address at the National Adult Literacy Awareness Week (2015)
- Speech at 30th Anniversary of the Connemara Environmental Education and Cultural Centre (2014)
- President launches Literacy Initiative at Malahide Community School (2013)
- Remarks at the exhibition ‘A great many choice books: 300 years of the Old Library’ (2012)