The National Adult Literacy Agency (Nala) has received €500,000 from the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland to develop a new eight-part TV series on adult literacy and numeracy.
The new series has a working title of The Workshop, and aims to document the lives of 10 adult learners as they progress through an eight-week learning course. The programme will be aired on RTÉ 1 early in 2008.
"This new series will be a fly-on-the wall documentary and aims to show the benefits of returning to education and the effects it has on people's lives," said Tom O'Mara of Nala.
Nala has already developed Read Write Now, which ran for five series between 2000 and 2004, and The Really Useful Guide to Words and Numbers which ran in 2006 and this year.
Viewers of The Workshop interested in developing their literacy skills can receive support materials from the programme and, if they complete the work over the course of the series, will be accredited with a Further Education and Training Awards Council citation.
"An OECD study in 2000 found that 25 per cent of Irish adults have a problem with basic literacy . . . We would like to think that our programme could help these people," Mr O'Mara said.
Anyone interested in taking part in this series should contact Nala at 01-8554332.
