Research Projects
Linking Adult, Community and Development Education through Active Citizenship
AONTAS will shortly commence a research project funded by the Development Education Section of Irish Aid to examine the extent to which development education is understood in the adult and community education sector and to explore how adult educators might be supported in integrating development education into its work and processes, using active citizenship as the main focus. The research will be completed before the end of 2008.
Best Practice Guidelines for Increasing Men's Participation in BTEI
AONTAS was commissioned by the Further Education Section (FES) of the Department of Education and Science in 2007 to develop best practice guidelines for Back to Education Initiative ( BTEI) service providers (within both the formal and community strands) for the increased participation of men in course provision. The guidelines will promote the inclusion of men, who traditionally are seen as hard-to-reach in relation to engagement with second chance education programmes. The development of guidelines has been informed by desk based research, interviews with the Adult Education Guidance Service and focus groups with formal and community strand providers of BTEI. The research will be available on the website later in the year. It is one of a suite of four research projects commissioned by FES to support the development of BTEI.
Community Education Provision in Ireland
In 2007 AONTAS began developing a research project designed to provide a clear picture of the current provision of community education in Ireland. The study aims to examine who the providers are; what funding sources are available; the types of courses being run and information on gender and age profile of learners in community education.
The outcomes of the research which will be carried out in 2008 will be a detailed quantitative documentation of community education provision in each county area across Ireland, a picture of the role that community education plays in overall adult education provision and a publicly available database of community education providers from which information can be analysed regularly.
