The 16th annual AONTAS Adult Learners’ Festival took place from the 7th to the 11th March 2022. Because we believe that everyone should have the chance to learn in a way that suits them, the theme was Learn Your Way.
There were 219 local events across 21 counties in Ireland, reaching approximately 10,000 people!
So people could go along to information and taster sessions for courses or classes they might be interested in, lectures, and workshops. These were on offer in a variety of locations, including Education and Training Boards, community education centres, Higher Education Institutions, libraries, and museums.
Because we were all still recovering from the pandemic at the time, of the 219 events, 150 were in person and 68 were online.
Adult learning is all about community and a sense of belonging, and these local events are important opportunities for people to come together.
AONTAS hosted three online events. 
60 people joined online for ‘Community Education – Working Together to Address Educational Inequality’, which focused on the community education sector and the Mitigating Against Educational Disadvantage Fund (MAEDF). AONTAS advocated for a long time for a fund to help people who most needed it to access education. This has now become the REACH Fund and has become a regular part of our education system.
The STAR Awards, a ceremony celebrating the best in adult learning across Ireland, was a huge success despite being online. We had a big growth in the number of nominees, and a larger judging panel than ever, with 19 judges. Mental Health Ireland became a sponsor for the first time, bringing the total number of sponsors to seven.
We also had the largest number of shortlisted groups (34 groups across six categories) and eleven winners.
It was the biggest online event so far, with 200 people in attendance, including some groups that hosted watch parties. On Twitter, STAR Awards trended nationally at number 1 and number 4 with the hashtag #STARAwards2022.
We also hosted a ‘Learners as Leaders’ event featuring people who went back to education and have since gone on to become leaders in learning in their own communities. They shared their stories of returning to education and the benefits of working with AONTAS.
We reached over 2 million people during the Festival (including press, radio, website at aontas.com, our newsletter and member webinars).
We reached 1.5 million people with 96 articles, both in print and online.
We took part in a number of local radio interviews promoting adult learning opportunities during the Festival.
STAR Award winner Cultural & Heritage Studies, CSN, College of Further Education were featured on RTE’s Today Show on St Patrick’s Day, where they highlighted their success.
We had 6,000 visitors to aontas.com and onesetpup.ie, which encourages people to take that first step back to education.
We published 7 blogs, 8 news pieces, and 2 new publications, including the MAEDF Policy Paper.
We are grateful to our members, stakeholders, and to all the adult learners for your enthusiasm, energy and hard work in helping us to make this year's Festival a huge success.
Click here for details about the Adult Learners’ Festival 2023, and how to get involved.
For further details contact Charis Hughes, AONTAS Head of Communications, at chughes@aontas.com
