The plain people of Ireland want plain English — and that’s official.

The provision of courses to match skills needs of the economy are among the top priorities in a five-year strategy for the €800m-a-year further education and training sector.

The literacy levels of the average Irish adult places us 20th out of 23 developed countries in a major international study.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn rightly trumpeted the recent, relatively strong performance of Irish universities in the latest world rankings yesterday.

It is hard to imagine that Ireland was once the university of Europe, an island of learning and classical scholarship that outshone anything the continent had to offer.

One in six people in Ireland have literacy difficulties, and a quarter have only a basic level of numeracy, according to new data.

Workers who have problems with reading and writing often earn less than their colleagues, research has found.

SIMPLY put, it is anything but.

A new website is being launched today to help adults with literacy difficulties manage their money.

WITH teenage literacy levels falling, a survey has found that fewer than one third of Irish children have a story read to them at bedtime.

SHOCKING research on adult numeracy has shown that 40% of Irish adults have difficulty with basic maths calculations.

PEOPLE who have excelled in improving their basic education skills will be honoured later this year.

AN A to Z guide to financial jargon was launched yesterday by adult literacy experts and a leading financial institution.

THE Government should support parents with low literacy levels to help tackle the issue of children with similar problems, according to the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA).