Norma Foley TD
Minister for Education
Our new literacy, numeracy and digital literacy strategy must help all our youth, starting with our infants and going right up to teenagers in post-primary school.
There are many opportunities to integrate the teaching of numeracy, literacy and digital skills in the classroom. For example, to introduce a mathematical element into the teaching of a Seamus Heaney poem, you could ask students to calculate his age in 1964, when he wrote ‘Digging,’ given that he was born in 1939.
Integrating numeracy and digital skills across subjects
If you wanted to add in some digital skills, you could ask them to research the name of Mossbawn, the farm in Derry, where he watched his father digging. There is a rich opportunity to marry numeracy, literacy and digital skills. Teachers are very skilled and talented in doing it in their own subject areas. They know the value of not teaching in isolation.
Under the strategy, we will improve financial and digital literacy among student.
Collective action for student success
Ireland’s new Literacy, Numeracy and Digital Literacy Strategy 2024–2033 empowers us to do more in this space. It is all about the power of the collective — everybody working together: teachers and school leaders, learners, parents and community members.
It will equip learners with the essential tools they need to thrive in an increasingly complex and interconnected world. Some actions that will be implemented under the strategy include running programmes through the Education Support Centres to help parents develop and promote reading and numeracy skills with their children.
It will support the wider rollout of the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Passport for Inclusion project, which recognises the experiences of girls from DEIS schools as they achieve micro-credentials in STEM.
Improving literacy and inclusion
Under the strategy, we will improve financial and digital literacy among students to guard them against the threat of online fraud and exploitation. Another important action under this strategy is developing a curriculum for Irish Sign Language at primary and post-primary levels to support its learning.
By working together, we can realise the vision of the strategy that ‘every learner develops the necessary literacy, numeracy and digital literacy skills to thrive and flourish as an individual; to engage and contribute fully as an ethical, active member of society; and to live a satisfying and rewarding life.’
