Seán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)

Great efforts have been made, in conjunction with stakeholders, to promote equality of access to education, especially for people whose initial experiences may have been discouraging. Family literacy groups, involving adults and their children, are running successfully. A family literacy initiative is being developed under DEIS, delivering equality of opportunity in schools, an action plan in educational inclusion. In 2006, a new intensive tuition in adult basic education, ITABE, programme commenced within the VECs. There are also a number of schemes targeted at people with special literacy needs. To cater for the literacy and basic education needs of immigrant groups, classes in English for speakers of other languages, ESOL, are funded through the adult literacy budget. In 2006, 12,000 students availed of tuition in English under the English for speakers of other languages programme, comprising 30% of participants in adult literacy programmes.