Problem addressed
The Adult Literacy for Life programme is a national initiative in Ireland to improve all types of literacy. Notably, over 1 in 5 adults in Ireland does not have a functional level of literacy. Alongside this, many adult learners and adult education tutors do not feel confident engaging with topics of climate change, sustainability, and environmental action.
Innovative solution
This project, led by ECO-UNESCO in collaboration with Kilkenny and Carlow ETB and Laois and Offaly ETB, comprised several key stages:
- Focus groups with adult literacy learners and adult education tutors in target areas
- ECO-UNESCO workshops with adult literacy learners; these workshops served to improve participants' climate and environmental literacy, as well as providing valuable feedback on the development of activities for the resource pack
- Development of a resource pack, provided in both digital and physical formats, for the use of adult education tutors. The resource pack takes an Education for Sustainable Development approach to building confidence in climate and environmental literacy within adult literacy learning contexts.
- Training sessions were delivered by ECO-UNESCO to adult literacy tutors in target areas
- The final resource pack was launched in December 2025 with a launch event in Tullamore, Ireland, bringing together all stakeholders including tutors and learners.
Key results and benefits
The resource pack, designed with an Education for Sustainable Development approach in mind, has been disseminated through Education and Training Boards across Ireland. Future development of this project includes training sessions to be delivered to ETB staff.
Over 40 individual adult learners were impacted through the workshop sessions for this project, helping to build their climate and environmental literacy.
Potential for mainstreaming
Connections could be made with partners across Europe who are interested in climate education, education for sustainable development, and adult literacy educaton.
