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Contents Introduction
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Opening Address Ms Berni Brady
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Keynote Address Professor Kathleen Lynch
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Summary of Presentations Ms Síle deValera TD Mr Sean Gorman Ms Monika Oels
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Drama Presentation The Women’s Centre
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Listening and Learning Space Ms Deirdre Lawlor Ms Ruth Smith
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Open Discussion Forum
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Conclusion
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Appendix 1: Participants Appendix 2: Conference Agenda
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Introduction Community Education has evolved in Ireland in recent years as an ideologically driven, highly innovative and large scale Adult Education provision consisting mainly of self-directed women’s groups. These groups have been central in defining the character of Community Education in Ireland and merit particular recognition for their contribution to date. Learning for Life: White Paper on Adult Education 2000.
Community-based groups and networks have been a lifeline to women in communities all over Ireland for more than twenty years and have become the catalysts for the personal, social and economic development of their communities. Women’s community-based education has played and continues to play, a key role in supporting women at community level to combat disadvantage and poverty. Upwards of 30,000 women are now estimated to participate. (Learning for Life ). The late 1980s marked a major turning point for the development of adult education in Ireland, as daytime community groups, mainly women’s groups, emerged across the country and developed their own adult education provision. Community education became the tool that
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encouraged women all over Ireland to raise their expectations, increase their skills, develop their confidence and bridge the gap between personal and community life. The groups involved in providing these courses included local women’s groups, daytime education groups, women’s centres and community-based women’s networks. These groups represented an alternative vision of adult education, developed their own education, explored their own needs and developed systems to overcome traditional barriers to education and training. Community -based women’s groups developed a distinctive and holistic approach to women’s education, with the activities and courses they provided taking in every aspect of women’s lives, from leisure
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activities to personal development, skills training to academic courses. This in turn contributed to the process of making women’s experience more visible and empowered women to collectively identify the barriers which exclude them from full citizenship.
has implemented four major projects that have worked with individual women, women’s groups and women’s networks:
During the early 1990s, many women’s groups became members of AONTAS, the National Association of Adult Education, bringing with them their valuable experience and analysis and thus impacting on the work of AONTAS as an organisation. AONTAS has since played a major role in supporting the work of this section of its membership through policy, research and development work. A milestone in this work was the publication in 2001 of the research document ‘At The Forefront: The Role of Women’s Community Education in Combating Poverty and Disadvantage in the Republic of Ireland’ commissioned by AONTAS. This report recognised the invaluable contribution women’s groups and networks have made in tackling women’s disadvantage.
Strategies to Advance Networks’ Collective Empowerment (STANCE) 2001-2003
Recognising the role of women’s groups and networks in the area of education, and also their role in influencing policy and practice at local and regional levels, a strategic decision was taken by AONTAS to support the development of a strong infrastructure for women’s community education. Since 1992 AONTAS has played a major role in supporting the development of this sector and developing its capacity to become an active player in the Lifelong Learning agenda. AONTAS
New Opportunities for Women (NOW) Projects 1992-1994 & 1996-1997 Women’s Education Networks Development Initiative (WENDI) 1998-2000
The NOW Projects provided training and support to individual women working within women’s groups and networks, providing them with the training in management, coordination and social analysis skills needed to be effective in their work. The WENDI project built on these initial programmes, recognising the collective capacity of the networks to influence policy and work strategically together, and laid the foundations of a regional infrastructure for the women’s networks. Finally, the STANCE Project which drew to a close at the end of 2003 strengthened this regional structure, and challenged the 25 women’s networks to see themselves as policy makers, and to develop their role in shaping the future of women’s community education and women’s position in Irish society more widely. This culminated in the establishment in 2003 of the National Collective of Community-based Women’s Networks (NCCWN), a new representative body to drive and support the future development of women’s community education.
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This conference, Women Learning: An Era of Change, was designed to demonstrate the importance and impact of women’s community education on women themselves, and in the development of communities all over Ireland.
The aims of the day were to:
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Demonstrate the rationale for the support given by AONTAS to women’s community education
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Show the empowerment of individual women, women’s groups and the women’s networks
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Describe the impact of this at local, regional, national and international levels
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Demonstrate the importance of resourcing women’s community education
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Identify the issues impacting on the future development of the sector
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Highlight the importance of putting women’s education on the political agenda at national and European levels
Opening Address John Ryan, AONTAS President as chairperson, welcomed conference participants and introduced AONTAS Director, Berni Brady Berni Brady officially opened the conference, which she said had two main purposes. One was to mark the end of the STANCE project, the fourth consecutive AONTAS project in support of women’s community education. The other was to celebrate the establishment of the National Collective of Community-based Women’s Networks, which would now take the sector forward in its own right. The STANCE Project was a three-year project jointly funded by the Departments of Education and Science and Social, Family and Community Affairs, which strengthened the capacity of Communitybased Women’s Networks and from which the National Collective of Community-based Women’s Networks emerged. The three previous projects included two funded through the New Opportunities for Women (NOW) Initiative between 1992 and 1997, which had supported women in the women’s groups and networks to access training opportunities relevant to their work. In 1998 AONTAS accessed funding under the Women’s Education Initiative to develop regional support and training for its member networks through the WENDI Project and finally, since 2001, had supported the development of a regional infrastructure of women’s networks through STANCE.
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AONTAS she said, had recognised the key role played by women not just in their own development but in the development of their families and the communities to which they belong, as workers, carers, educators, strategic thinkers, contributors to the economy and to civil society. Yet women’s contribution was still undervalued and under represented. A recent PPF report published by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on Male /Female wage differentials showed that after 30 years of equal opportunities legislation in Ireland there remained a gap of 15% between the average hourly wage of men and women. The role of women as carers was the biggest factor creating this gap. Berni observed that there was also still a very high level of gender blindness at a political level. In 2002 the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr. Willie O’ Dea pledged to legislate to ensure gender balance on Government and State Committees. Today she was calling on the Minister to act on this pledge. Berni acknowledged the support of the Government departments who have provided the funding for all four AONTAS projects and hoped that the conference would demonstrate to the civil servants and politicians present that it is money well spent and that their support and commitment needs to be continued.
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Keynote Address Professor Kathleen Lynch Chair of Equality Studies, University College Dublin Women’s Citizenship I’d like to thank you for inviting me to speak here today. I will begin by saying that when I was asked to prepare this presentation I asked for some statistics from AONTAS, realising that you know what state community education is in currently. One thing about us in Ireland is that we are wonderful at rhetoric, we excel at it. We create an illusion at times that because we have spoken about something that it has happened. That is most definitely the case when it comes to the support and funding of women’s community education. The cutbacks in the recent budget in terms of Community Employment have really badly affected the women’s community education sector and the community sector generally. The cutting back of not just CE places, but also the Community Development Support Agencies from 13 down to 6 is an attack on civil society, and I feel it is time we started naming things for what they are and challenging what I am going to talk about today, which is the new right discourse within the heart of the State. I’m going to talk about women’s citizenship. Those of you who are familiar with my work will know that we have created a framework for developing an egalitarian society based on four areas of equality. The importance of economic equality to women does not need to be
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explained to those of you who work, many for low pay or very little pay. Neither do I need to talk about socio-cultural equality and the importance of the recognition of difference and respect of people for their differences. And neither indeed do you need to be told about the importance of power, and that we have political equality so that women are in a position to name their own world and to take control of the naming of it. Today I want to talk to you about the fourth dimension of equality that has not normally been part of a debate about society or about citizenship or about equality. The debate about equality has been framed around economics, culture and politics, which are well established domains of equality with political significance. They are well established in public debate. But there is another sphere of equality where there is a sílence, and that is in the affective equality domain. The worlds of care and of love work are not discussed because we are told not to mention them, and we are ashamed to mention them.
“I want to look at women’s citizenship and citizenship in general in a more rounded way, a way that would create a space for women in public life and a different type of citizenship than what we are accustomed to in Ireland.”
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I want to comment first on the liberal view of the citizen and the neoliberal view. First of all, I am not denying the importance of economic, political and social rights. However the problem with this view is that it ignores the race, gender, age, ethnicity and disability influences on citizenship and status. It assumes that the worker is at the centre of citizenship, the paid worker. As we know, many people in our society either because of a disability or due to their position as full time carers, are not or were not in paid employment. So the liberal perspective, as a labour market perspective, ignores them. It underpins our social partnership model, which we are successfully selling abroad, although it does not consider how those outside the labour market can participate in the partnership. It is silent on the issue of interdependency in human existence.
There are three views of citizenship that are important and that are of relevance to us. The most common is the universal liberal view, which sees the citizen as an autonomous employed worker. This universal model of the citizen - someone with civil rights, freedom of speech, rights to contracts, political rights and social rights is a very de-gendered view. The liberal view does not take into account diversity. So what we now have is a second view, and what I would argue has reigned supreme in Ireland, and that is the neo-liberal ‘new right’ view of the citizen. The citizen in this case is an autonomous economic ‘maximiser.’ A person who has no responsibility to others and who defines themselves in terms of maximum profit and gain. The third model I am going to talk about as an alternative is a care-giver perspective, based on a relational view of the citizen as dependent and inter-dependent.
The neo-liberal model has gained so much credence now that I am sure most of you are redefining your projects not in terms of how much they benefit community or society, but what cost-benefit analysis you can provide for your service. We talk about clients and customers. We have started to encode our work in the language of a new-right neo-liberal discourse without even noticing. People will say that doesn’t matter, but it matters a lot. Language doesn’t just define the world, it names it for the future. It names the terms on which we relate to people. It changes the way we relate to one another. I would hope that instead of embracing this that we would contest it and challenge it.
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The citizen is defined as privatised. We now have what I would call the anxious classes. This is a very good society at making people anxious. In a privatised citizenship the State is not responsible for you, you are responsible for yourself. Yet how can we have a society and a citizenship that is caring unless we have the State there to protect us? People talk about the accountability that will come in a privatised world, but the only accountability that can come is the accountability of the market and of those with the resources to command accountability. In relation to education for example, we have a ludicrous situation in many schools where powerful parents can hold people to account. Working class or low income parents can not. People who are not insiders cannot hold institutions to account in a privatised world. They lack the market capacity. This neo-liberal view creates a world where I am only responsible for myself. It is important to realise where we are going if we do not challenge this because a society which says I am only responsible for myself fails to have a sense of public concern and care for the other, whoever the other may be. The State’s role in public services and in community services is being seriously circumscribed. The State by cutting back funds for the community sector is ending the funding of civil society. We know that the community sector is a vibrant and vital part of civil society and taking away resources from that sector is a deliberate undermining of the civil institutions of the State. This is evident from recent cutbacks. Why is it happening? I want to talk about a language that we don’t bring into our debates. There are divisions in our society between the so-called public world,
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where we don’t mention care and love, and the community world where care related and development work is the overriding concern. We know we talk about these things, but we talk about our conflicts between paid work and caring work in the kitchen, in the car, in the bedroom. We don’t discuss it in public. Yet for women, it is the overriding concern in terms of their engagement with employment, with part time employment or with adult education. Disallowing the language of love and care masks the masculine character of the public sphere. We are not allowed to speak; we have been silenced. Why is there silence about the affective domain and about the emotional labour required to reproduce humanity?
“What we now have in effect is a care-less model of citizenship.” The market economy has become the primary reproducer of cultural value. The emotional labour involved in caring and loving has been discredited and denied. Even if we look at our private lives, it is both a necessity and a nuisance. Listen to people around you talk about ‘getting rid of the children for the day’, or ‘I don’t know where we will put so and so when they get old’. Caring is coloured in an oppressive context. Many of us disassociate ourselves from a caring language: We have arrived, we are public women of the State, and we don’t use this language anymore. We don’t pretend we have to look after our mother. We jettison that from our public language. I suggest that we need to deconstruct care work from a feminist perspective and enable
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care discourse into policy and politics itself. I want to challenge the neo-liberal view of public life and services and to replace it with a rights-based view of citizenship and one based on parity for the caregiver one that recognises the interdependency of all human beings. In community work we know that it is in giving of oneself that we create the space for other people. It is not done for profit or gain. The caregiver perspective assumes collective responsibility for service provision and calls for democratic accountability of State institutions rather than market accountability. I would like to draw a distinction between those two: in the market model only those with resources can hold the system to account whereas in the democratic model, everybody can hold the system to account whatever their resources. We are talking about strong publics and weak publics. In feminist theory they talk of the community sector as a ‘weak’ public. I want to challenge that language. The weak must in fact begin to redefine the strong because the weak is not weak. Nancy Fraser has talked about women being involved in what she calls ‘counter-politics’ or community politics. Community discourse and politics is focussed on the care ethic and this is inadmissible in the strong public sphere of national and international politics. We have not been allowed to claim public space. Why is it there are so many people involved in local community politics who never move on? It’s a number of things, like class, resources and other things. But it is also the fact that the issues that concern us are not admitted into the ‘senior’ space, the ‘upper school’ of politics. This is something we need to address.
I argue that caring is a speciesdefining activity for humanity. It isn’t just a set of social practices, it is also a set of values to guide public practice. It is a different way, not one that focuses on profiteering as an end in itself. Caring is a starting point for a new political vision of society and we need to start to name the conflict between care and love and the paid work that we do. I recognise that certain parts of the work that we do, ‘love labour’ as I have called it previously, cannot be commodified. You can’t pay someone to go out to dinner with your partner and pretend it is yourself! There are absurdities in the concept of commodification. Of course we need childcare, but we also need time and space to do our own care work for ourselves and for the others in our lives. There is a need to change our view of citizenship. Of course we need a universal liberal view of citizenship to bring us to where we are. But we need to challenge the neo-liberal view and replace it with a care giving model, an inclusive model and one that recognises the rights of everyone. Thank you very much.
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Summary of Presentations Síle deValera TD, Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science Minister deValera said she was delighted to address the conference. It was apparent how much progress had been made in the women’s community education sector to date, but she felt that examining future directions was necessary to enable the Department of Education and Science to work with practitioners to move forward. The Minister noted the contribution of women’s community education to a number of developments in adult education including the public debate following the publication of the 1998 Green Paper on Adult Education, the launch of the Back to Education Initiative and the appointment of 35 Community Education Facilitators. Funding for adult education programmes had increased dramatically in recent years she said, but closer analysis would be required to guide developments for the future. This would involve close analysis of actual outcomes in terms of learning, certification and progression. Although reporting requirements were labour intensive, where public money was given there needed to be accountability and an end result not just a process. Providers such as VECs must be equipped to engage in evidence-based advocacy for increased funding.
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The Minister felt that the Community Education Facilitators in the VECs were well placed to support community education activities. An increased focus both on access to education and on equality were also creating a positive climate in which the community education sector could develop. She admitted however, that much remained to be done and there were huge challenges to be faced in increasing investment in adult learning, widening access, addressing financial barriers and building support services, and promoting responsive models of provision. Women’s community-based education had proven resourceful and adept in these areas in the past. The Minister was confident that it had the talent and attitude to make the most of new opportunities and wished the conference participants well.
Sean Gorman, Assistant Secretary, Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment Mr Gorman conveyed apologies from Minister Frank Fahey, Minister for Labour Affairs who had been due to address the conference. He addressed the Lifelong Learning theme in relation to women and to Active Labour Market Programmes. Mr Gorman said that in today’s training and employment environment a focus on and belief in lifelong learning had been committed to by employers and training organisations alike. Society was coming around to the realisation that people learn at every stage of their lives. His Department therefore supported lifelong learning initiatives especially those bringing women into the workforce. He outlined as an example
the ‘Gateway for Women’ project jointly funded by FAS and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform under the Equality for Women Measure. This initiative contributed to the Government’s commitment of achieving the EU target of a 60% female employment rate by 2010. Since the initiative started last year, in excess of 600 women had registered to engage. He spoke briefly about the NOW Programmes, two of which had been run by AONTAS between 1992 and 1997. Overall NOW objectives were to increase participation of women in the labour market and to disseminate best practice in a strategic way in order to influence mainstream policy. Under the programme 1694 women completed training and 2,000 received accreditation. The EQUAL community initiative had now replaced the EMPLOYMENT initiatives like NOW. Mr Gorman turned to Active Labour Market Programmes. He said that the Government had allocated a total fund in 2004 of €351 million to support 25,000 places across the schemes Community Employment, Jobs Initiative and Social Economy. He stated that there were no further reductions planned in the total provision for 2004. He also mentioned the new Rural Social Programme providing local employment opportunities to 2,500 persons eligible for Farm Assist through the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. In future he felt Active Labour Market Programmes like Community Employment would focus more on progression and employability. He noted that EU Ministers were agreed that the issue of ‘activation’
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and maximising participation of people in the workforce whether they are men or women was the key one facing Europe.
Monika Oels EU Directorate General of Education and Culture Monika thanked AONTAS for the invitation to speak; she was delighted to join the conference and to find such joy and enthusiasm about learning. When learning festivals were introduced in Europe she said, people were hesitant about them and could not understand why we would celebrate the joy of learning in adult education. But they were very successful and this conference reminded her of that. Monica identified common issues across adult education in Europe. One was gender mainstreaming. According to the OECD it is mainly men aged between 25 and 50, with very good degrees and good jobs, who have access to learning opportunities. So the money is not spent on those needing it most, or on women. Second chance learning across Europe is often inaccessible to women. A big issue everywhere is of course lack of childcare. Second chance courses Monika argued, needed to become more accessible and supportive of women’s circumstances. One of the requirements for EU funded programmes she said, was that they should have an innovative pedagogy. What the EU understood by the term innovative pedagogy was in fact represented by the Irish
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community education model. It involved a learner-centred approach that encourages participation in planning and evaluation of programmes, and that includes life-wide subjects relevant to the learner and chosen by the learner. The tutor is more of a learning facilitator in the innovative pedagogy, and acts as a person who supports the learning but does not direct. Another important aspect was that learning was local. Monika saw a number of challenges ahead in adult education. There needed to be supports for women to look after both their parents and children while in education. There should be the possibility of having parental leave for men which is something normally only women would take. In the Nordic countries they have realised that men should have parental leave so the woman can go out to learn. There also have to be new forms of support, as lone parents for example will need learning opportunities and incentives that are different. Monika also identified investment as a challenge. Governments have been cutting down in the last few years across Europe on education budgets although they promised after the Lifelong Learning Paper in 2000 that they would spend more money on education. Citizenship was also a key area that needed to be addressed through adult education. 2005 will be European Year of Citizenship through Education. Monika invited the women’s groups to take part and to find out more about women and citizenship across Europe. The Grundtvig Programme provided opportunities to travel and learn in Europe and Monika invited participants to get involved.
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Drama Presentation The Women’s Centre As part of the ‘Women Learning’ conference AONTAS commissioned a piece of drama to demonstrate the importance and role of women’s community education, and to highlight the issues pertinent to the sector. Women from local women’s groups and women’s networks were asked to develop and participate in the drama based on their own experiences in the sector. The drama was based in a typical women’s centre and depicted the visit of an EU Official and Minister and the frantic activity that takes place preparing for the visit. It also showed the real impact of recent cutbacks in resources and how these impacted on the centre itself and on potential learners who could not participate in education at the centre because of the lack of supports available. The message of the drama was simple: Women’s community education successfully tackles educational disadvantage in communities all over the country and makes an enormous contribution to the development of individuals, families, communities and society. Yet despite research, statistics and stories proving its impact, the sector is still in need of political support and significant resources to sustain its development as part of the lifelong learning agenda.
The drama group consisted of Aine Holden from Donegal Women’s Network, Trish Roullier from Longford Women’s Link, Sheila Smyth, Phylis Priestly and Ann O’Rourke all from Prussia Street Women’s Group, Niamh Keaveney from AONTAS, Emer Dolphin, Consultant and Bibi. Mary Moynihan of Smashing Times Theatre Company directed the drama.
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Listening and Learning Space A listening and learning space was included in the conference to provide a platform for participants in the AONTAS Projects to outline their personal experience and learning and to allow participants to understand what their experience had been in a very real way. Two women highlighted the impact of their participation in community education and in the AONTAS Projects, not just in terms of their own progression but in terms of the impact on their families, communities and the women’s groups in which they worked and learned. There was also an opportunity for conference participants to respond to what they had heard and to make their own contributions on relevant issues.
Deirdre Lawlor - NOW II Participant Deirdre Lawlor participated in the second AONTAS NOW Project entitled ‘Professional Training and Networking of Women Managers in the Field of Community Education and Development.’ Her first involvement with women’s groups came in 1989 when she decided to attend an English class with a friend. For Deirdre, the very first day was the first step on her own personal journey. Having left school at primary level, not through choice but because second level was fee-paying, she had always wanted to return to education. She quickly became hungry for knowledge and wanted to learn more.
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Deirdre progressed to complete Leaving Cert English and History, as well of lots of other courses within her local community group. She joined the Management Committee and learned financial skills and organisational skills. Through her involvement with that local women’s group in Crumlin she was selected as a participant in the AONTAS NOW Course in the NCIR in Ranelagh. Deirdre emphasised the role of the structures and supports put in place for the NOW course that had allowed her to participate successfully. There was emotional, academic and career guidance support. The course gave her real confidence in her academic ability. It also gave her the opportunity to share in the education of her children with whom she could study and discuss academic work. The impact on her immediate and extended family and community of her involvement in community education was huge, and those she knew had also been encouraged back into learning by her experience.
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Deirdre eventually progressed onto NUI Maynooth, where she struggled with having to pay part-time fees as well as balancing childcare and work commitments. She was very fortunate that her local Partnership gave her a small grant initially and that she then received a Millennium Scholarship which funded her through her time in Maynooth. In November 2003 she was very proud to graduate with a BA! Deirdre felt that none of this would have been possible without the support of her local community group and without the support of AONTAS. She strongly urged that Government stop seeing community education as the poor relation of the adult education sector. Particularly this year she said women’s groups had real problems with funding. This she believed was wrong. Deirdre’s journey has come full circle, and she is now working as a Project worker with the South Western Area Health Board. She works in the area of domestic abuse in the local community where she took her first steps. She is also a member of the Management Committee of the Loreto Centre in Crumlin. She urged the Department of Education and Science to allow other women start their journey so that they could have the same chances as she had.
Ruth Smith - STANCE Participant Ruth Smith participated in the STANCE Project ‘Strategies to Advance Networks’ Collective Empowerment’ as a member of Tipperary Women’s Network. Ruth described her own experience in women’s community education and then outlined the benefits to her Women’s
Network of participating in STANCE. Ruth moved to Co. Tipperary fourteen years ago and quickly became involved in working with women in Cashel, where she was employed in the CORI part-time job opportunities programme as Research and Development Worker into Women’s Issues. She conducted a needs a analysis to find out what women wanted in the area and found that support and training was what they wanted. So she set up a women’s group, a lone parents’ group and a community arts group, learning facilitation and coordination skills along the way. Knockanrawley Centre, which is a Community Development Project in Tipperary Town, employed Ruth soon afterwards. Through working with the women’s groups there she joined Tipperary Women’s Network, which is a small rural network consisting of seven groups which meet weekly. The nature of the area is such that there is a lot of isolation and few resources.
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Following a review of the Network in 1999, the members became more confident and recognised their need for training and empowerment. Some of the best training they had been involved with had been done through AONTAS and STANCE in particular. The training followed community education principles, which made it accessible, empowering and real. Through STANCE, Tipperary Women’s Network has developed strong links with other women’s networks from Donegal to Dublin to Clare, and also achieved representation in County strategic areas such as the South County Tipperary Development Board. The Network has also developed its own profile regionally and nationally. STANCE had given the Network the knowledge and support it needed to be more strategic and be aware of its possible role in decision making. How to influence policy had been a key learning. Ruth identified another major outcome of the STANCE Programme as the establishment of the National Collective of Community-based Women’s Networks. She and the Network took a decision to be actively involved because the Collective gives the opportunity to continue to be active and to influence women’s lives through policy. Ruth herself is now Secretary of that Collective, having been chosen by Tipperary Women’s Network to represent it on the Steering Group. AONTAS through STANCE had put the Network clearly on the right path she said. They would now ensure that this process continues.
Open Discussion Forum Conference participants warmly welcomed the inputs by Deirdre Lawlor and Ruth Smith, which clearly demonstrated the positive impacts not only of the AONTAS projects, but of women’s community education on people’s lives.
“Having caring responsibilities is not something that women want to give up, but that does not mean that women should have to sit at home uneducated either.” Several participants identified strongly with Kathleen Lynch’s presentation about the value of caring and found her input powerful. Having caring responsibilities is not something that women want to give up, but that does not mean that women should have to sit at home uneducated either. This, participants felt, is where community education fits because it recognises the needs of women as carers and recognises that preparation for employment is not just what education is all about. Participants also commented on the difference in the perspective on education offered by Kathleen Lynch, with its focus on equality,
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citizenship and care, and that offered by both the Minister of State and the Assistant Secretary from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Both of those speakers focussed on the role of education in supporting the economy and in encouraging women in particular back into the workforce. The Minister had also underlined the need for intensive numerical evaluation of the outcomes of community education, which seemed to suggest that economic return was the most important single issue in determining the level of investment the Department of Education and Science would make into second chance initiatives. This perspective was challenged strongly from the floor and undoubtedly stood in contrast to Professor Lynch’s model of citizen as care-giver. Her emphasis on the need to have a caring society, in which all people are valued and respected and not viewed as ‘economic maximisers’ seemed at odds with the views presented by Government representatives. What she had described as the ‘neo-liberal’ model of citizenship seemed to be what they had endorsed in their inputs. Participants felt that community education was already actively challenging this model and should continue to do so. On a similar note, a number of contributions identified a lack of respect for diversity in Ireland, for instance in terms of family diversity. It was pointed out that while we continue to define family in the traditional sense as father, mother and children, that services will not be made available in an equal way. This was an issue highlighted by Monika Oels during her address. It is also the case that educational opportunities for minority ethnic groups, especially women, are not very widespread in
Ireland. Many educational opportunities are linked to legal status and EU or Irish Citizenship. It was suggested that we will have to face this issue in a real way as a growing multi-cultural society. Participation in education for older women also needs to be encouraged. Participants also argued that the ongoing lack of childcare in Ireland is simply not being resolved by Government, despite there being a National Childcare Strategy in place and a crèche-building programme underway through the Department of Justice, Equality and Law reform. The reduction by 37% in 2003 of the childcare budget for VTOS, Youthreach and Traveller Training participants by the Department of Education and Science was yet another blow in this area. Women, being the main group affected by these cuts, should be active in challenging them. Given the problems outlined by Deirdre Lawlor regarding coping with part-time fees, participants urged that the Department of Education and Science be challenged to put an end to the charging of part-time fees at third level. One participant had put her children through third level for free, but was having to pay for her own course. There was no justification for this whatsoever. AONTAS for a long time had been trying to bring all of these issues to the attention of Government. Recently, as part of the work of the Educational Disadvantage Committee a forum had been held to which adult learners were invited and where Minister deValera and others from the Department of Education and Science attended to listen.
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It was striking at that forum how the barriers that affected adult learners were the same as in 1980. Despite a lot of money having been invested into literacy, it was frustrating to hear adult students 24 years after the establishment of NALA talking about the same things, i.e. access to information, access to supports, access to childcare. Another strong lobby was obviously needed to move things forward. Discussion moved to the YES Consultation (Your Education System) being held by the Minister for Education and Science during 2004. It was noted that in the adult education sector, lengthy consultations had already taken place, especially after the Green Paper in 1998, in order to bring issues into the policy arena. All of the ideas from the sector had gone into the White Paper, Learning for Life 2000 and that Paper is sitting in the Department of Education and Science as a framework for the development of adult and community education with only parts of it having been implemented. Implementation of parts of it also seemed to have been deliberately slowed down by the Department. The fact that the Minister for Education and Science was now asking people to come again to public meetings and say the same things that they had been saying for 20 years was really very disillusioning. In light of all the recent Government slowdowns and cutbacks in adult education and also more significantly in the Community Development and Community Education sectors, participants felt strongly that a message should be sent from the conference to the Government that this was really unacceptable and an attack on civil society. AONTAS President, John Ryan as Chairperson of the conference, criticised the
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decision of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to cut back the Community Employment Schemes during late 2003, saying this had had a massive impact on adult and community education providers nationwide. Sean Gorman, who represented Minister for Labour Affairs Frank Fahey at the conference, was urged to bring this message back to his Department and to reflect on the paper of Professor Kathleen Lynch outlining the non-economic benefits of participation in education and in society. It would only be when the Government educated itself as to the real community and societal value of education, that community education would be truly recognised as the valuable and dynamic sector that it is. On a final note, participants at the conference agreed that the issue of gender-blindness was still an issue in Ireland, despite the introduction of Equality Legislation through both the Equal Status Act and Employment Equality Acts. At this event, which clearly demonstrated the key role to be played by women as citizens and decision-makers, AONTAS called on the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Willie O’Dea TD, to act on his promise to bring in legislation enforcing gender balance on Government and State committees as a starting point in achieving real political equality for women. It was noted that research from the National Women’s Council of Ireland had shown that the percentage of women appointed to state boards has rarely reached 40 per cent, although this has been an official guideline since 1991. Recent research by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) estimated that the proportion of women in
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employment is 43% and that there are greater numbers of women than men in the 50-64 year old age band moving into the labour market. However, women continue to work in low skilled jobs and do not access higher positions in significant numbers. The research by the National Women’s Council in 2002 entitled ‘Irish Politics, Jobs for the Boys’ which was presented to the conference, painted a depressing picture of just how little women’s voices count. The key findings painted a stark picture of the real challenges ahead:
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The percentage of women appointed to State boards has rarely reached 40 per cent, although this has been an official guideline since 1991.
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These findings reflect women’s exclusion from other decisionmaking functions – women account for only 3 per cent of managing directors, 9 per cent of Secretaries-general in the civil service and 7 per cent of high court judges.
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The percentage of women elected to the Dáil has risen by only 1 per cent, to 13 per cent, over the past 10 years. At this rate, it will take 370 years for the percentage of women in the Dáil to reach 50 per cent.
The conference heard that EU models show how the underrepresentation of women can be changed through positive action. Similarly, a proactive strategy by Government Departments to ensure greater gender balance on a National Development Plan Monitoring Committee increased the percentage of female participation by 11 per cent in two years. More of this positive action was needed.
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There are 22 women currently serving as TDs in the Dáil, 13 from Leinster, 5 from Munster, 2 from Ulster and 2 from Connaught. 10 counties do not have any women TDs.
Conclusion An Era of Change?
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Almost 45 per cent of serving women TDs come from politically active families.
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Women not belonging to politically active families form only 7 per cent of the current Dáil.
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The number of women appointed to the Cabinet decreased by 7 per cent for the current Government, while the number of women appointed as Ministers of State declined by a full 11 per cent.
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The percentage of women elected as local councillors remained unchanged at 15 per cent in the 1991 and 1999 elections.
The conference clearly demonstrated the huge impact that the four projects run by AONTAS in support of women’s community education had on the individual participants, their groups and their networks. More significantly it demonstrated the clear value of community education in allowing women to access education and training opportunities, in supporting them to participate and in allowing them to have an impact on local, regional and national decision-making bodies and in the policy-making process.
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The personal stories of conference participants reflected its title, ‘Women Learning - an Era of Change.’ Clearly huge learning had taken place for project participants, while at the same time the women’s community education sector had managed to change public and political perceptions of the sector itself and had eventually been publicly recognised in the White Paper Learning for Life 2000. This level of recognition and of achievement was truly something to be celebrated.
“...there is still a huge amount of work to be done in building the status of women in Ireland as learners, as citizens and as political representatives.” However, a key lesson emerging from the conference was that while recognition for community education seemed to have been achieved and while groups within the sector had undoubtedly developed their capacities to challenge and influence policy, there is still a huge amount of work to be done in building the status of women in Ireland as learners, as citizens and as political representatives. The purpose of education of all kinds is to support engagement with the world around us. Formal education often tends to be a passive process, where learners receive information about society and the world without any meaningful analysis of that world. Community education goes a step further, providing a means for learners to be active in the education process by setting their own learning agenda,
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and also offering a means by which learners can assess and analyse their own place in the world around them. Membership of a community group in itself is an active statement and provides a real way of participating in civil society. Women’s community education provides a space where the views and opinions of women who are perhaps otherwise silenced in society can be heard and acted upon. The neo-liberal citizen model divides people into categories of active and in-active, based on their participation in the labour force. However the fact that those who are not part of the labour force are deemed invisible in this model means that many women are left outside the debate about society and the citizen. Women’s groups and networks using the community education model provide a genuine opportunity for women to participate fully in shaping their futures where wider society may exclude them and ignore their contribution because it is not seen as economically beneficial. As Kathleen Lynch observed, so called ‘love labour’ which is the work needed to care for and nurture people and to reproduce ties of family, community and solidarity is not openly acknowledged in society. Community education allows women to become active agents not only in their own development, but in the development of their families and their communities. Many participants at the conference reported the renewed interest in education that their own participation had on members of their family and their community. The empowerment associated with community education, often lacking in the formal education model and elsewhere in society, validates the experiences of
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women are not ready to be defeated by an ongoing lack of resources and investment. The real life stories of participants on the day clearly showed that where a real belief and commitment to the values and principles of community education exist, for example in the women’s groups, that genuine equality and genuine participation could be achieved. Although the road ahead might be long and difficult, women’s community education would continue to provide one of the most effective models of education for citizenship, for equality, for care-giving and for progression available today. Its true value was known to all participants in Ireland’s 1000 women’s groups and would continue to affect the lives of individual women, their families and their communities long into the future.
women from all backgrounds and recognises their role and rights as citizens and equal members of society. The democratic group processes used in the community education model give real power to women and value their views, their needs, their potential and their individuality. This kind of genuinely participative democracy is very much lacking in the other more visible structures of Irish society, where the representative model of democracy is used. As Kathleen Lynch highlighted, those ‘represented’ in this model tend to be those with maximum economic influence and material resources. Many participants on the day related to the model of equality presented by Professor Lynch, with its focus on affective equality, or the caregiving aspect of people’s lives, particularly women’s lives. Although community education is finally recognised in a Government policy document, its role in supporting women to be care-givers and in promoting that model of citizenship still goes unseen. This was very apparent from the preference by funding bodies to count success only in economic terms. The continued rationalisation of schemes that did not appear to have an added economic value despite having a very significant community value, such as the cuts in Community Employment, were evidence of the lack of recognition by the State of the value of participation, of care and of diversity. However, while political commitment to the growth and development of women’s community education remains weak, the sector itself remains strong. It was very clear from the energy, enthusiasm and real sense of achievement in all of the participants at the conference that
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Appendix 1: Participants
Monica Cassidy
Larkin Centre
Una Clancy
Women Together Tallaght
Margaret Agnew
Women’s Equality in Bray (WEB)
Caroline Clarke
CARE Adult Education Group
Ana Augusto
Longford Women’s Link
Mary Cleary
Tipperary Women’s Network
Kay Bailey
Ruhama
Jean Clifford
Clondalkin Women’s Network
Liam Bane
Co. Dublin VEC
Mary Colclough
Age Action Ireland
Marie Terese Barry
Dublin City Council
Brid Connolly
NUI Maynooth/ AONTAS Executive
Patricia Berkery
Women’s Equality in Bray (WEB)
Mary Conroy
Tralee Women’s Resource Centre
Marie Befre
Discovery Centre CTC
Brenda Conroy
Navan Women’s Forum
Martha Bolger
Co. Kilkenny VEC
Mary Conway Moriarty
Tralee Women’s Resource Centre
Pat O’Shea
Tipperary Women’s Network
Thomand Coogan
UCD
Liz Branagan
Clondalkin Women’s Network
Joan Courtney
Tralee Women’s Resource Centre
Bernie Broderick
Duagh Family Resource Centre
Veronica Crowley
Carmelite Community centre
Mary Brodie
Co. Sligo VEC
Josephine Cullen
Leixlip Women’s Studies
Mary Butler
Co. Kilkenny VEC
Susan Cullinane
Co. Kildare VEC
Clodagh Byrne
DIT
Eleanor Dalton
Waterford Women’s Centre
Catherine Byrne
Dun Laoghaire VEC
Marie Daly
Ronanstown CDP
Valerie Byrne
Women Together Tallaght
Anna Dangerfield
Crosscare/ AONTAS Executive
Breda Cahill
Western Women’s Link
Brenda Delaney
Co. Wicklow VEC
Sylvia Caldwell
DALC
Claire Devaney
Ballymote Family Resource Centre
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Olwen Dixon
Little Bray Family Resource Centre
Sally Galiana
Near FM Community Radio
Breege Doherty
Women’s Health Board
Maris Garuba
Longford Women’s Link
Deirdre Doherty-Ryan
Co. Dublin VEC
Helen Geoghegan
CDVEC
Emer Dolphin
Consultant
Joann Geraghty
City of Waterford VEC
Susan Dunne
AONTAS Executive
Vivienne Glanville
Chris Elligott
Tipperary Women’s Network
Clondalkin Women’s Community Education Forum
Mary Elliott
Co. Dublin VEC
Sheila Gleeson
North Tipperary VEC
Breda English
Tipperary Women’s Network
Sue Gogan
Community Legal Resource
Annette Ennis
Tallaght Women Together
Wendy Goggin
Southill Domestic Abuse Project
Roberta Feely
CITC
Pat Golding
DALC
Helen Finnegan
Southside Community Development Programme
Marie Griffin
New Ross CDP
Maureen Guerin
Tralee
Maria Fitzgibbon
Katherine Howard Foundation
Nuala Harte
Alps
Helen Flanagan
Limerick Community Education Network
Josephine Hassett
Tralee Women’s Resource Centre
Cathie Hogan
Anne Flannery
Larkin Centre
Adult Guidance Service Dublin City West
Mary Flannery
City of Limerick VEC
Aine Holden
Donegal Women’s Network
Jennifer Flynn
Shanty Education and Training Centre
Freda Holly
Co. Wicklow VEC
Ester Foley
New Ross CDP
Miriam Holt
Waterford Women’s Centre
Aileen Foran
Ringsend Action Project
Margaret Hurley
Individual
Kathryn Fox
St. Andrew’s Resource Centre
Bernie Judge
FEDU/DES
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Maureen Kavanagh
AONTAS
Hannah McGrath
Tipperary Women’s Network
Helen Keogh
National VTOS Co-ordinator/ DES
Eithne McNulty
Workers Educational Centre
Keeley Carmel
Prussia Street Women’s Group
Linda Mensah
Longford Women’s Link
Annemarie Larkin
Southside Community Development Programme
Brigid Moriarty
Tralee
Pat Morrissey
CDVEC
Fiona Lawler
Individual
Breda Mulhoon
Individual
Deirdre Lawlor
Individual
Marie Mulvihill
Francis Street Community Education
Jerry Lodge
Laois Co. Council
Ciara Murphy
Navan Women’s Forum
Julia Long
NDP Gender Equality Unit
Christine Murray
Community Action Network
Catherine Lynch
NCCRI
Helen Murray
Women Together Tallaght
Avril Lynch
Carlow Youth Training
Luke Murtagh
Co. Tipperary VEC
Brigid Madden
Alps
Michelle Nealon
Little Bray Family Resource Centre
Maria Maguire
Co. Wicklow VEC
Eithne NicDhonnchada
Co. Galway VEC
Ann Mallaghan
Galway County Development Board
Stella O’Brien
Ballyfermot Citizen’s Information Centre
George Maybury
PSEU
Madge O’Callaghan
Southill Domestic Abuse Project
Dolores McCarthy
Women in Business
Ann Winters
Ballymote Family Resource Centre
Eleanor McClorey
Individual
Carmel O’Connor
Women Together Tallaght
Teresa McEvoy
Co. Laois VEC
Sean O’Connor
AONTAS Executive
Maeve McGarvey
Co. Donegal VEC
Mary O’Driscoll
Positive Success Group
Eileen McGlynn
Doras Luimni
Molly O’Duffy
Dublin Inner City Partnership
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Anne O’Dwyer
Loreto Centre Community Education
Marie Silke
Western Women’s Link
Fiona O’Loughlin
City of Galway VEC
Eileen Sinnott
New Ross CDP
Susan O’Regan
Leixlip Women’s Studies
Yvonne Slathy
Wicklow Information Network
Leonora O’Reilly
AONTAS Executive
Maria Slowey
DCU
Ann O’Rourke
Prussia Street Women’s Group
Anne Smith
Corduff CDP
Kathleen O’Toole
TAP
Ruth Smith
Tipperary Women’s Network
Caroline Omoenabu
Longford Women’s Link
Sheila Smyth
Prussia Street Women’s Group
Efe Omoregbee
Longford Women’s Link
Renee Synnott
Partas
Funke Oyewole
Longord Women’s Link
Rose Todd
Waterford Women’s Centre
Bernadette Phillips
OPEN
Betty Walsh
Limerick Community Education Network
Phyllis Priestley
Prussia Street Women’s Group
Donal Walsh
City of Galway VEC
Audrey Rabbitte
Tallaght Traveller’s CDP
Miriam Weadick
DALC
Helen Rafferty
City of Waterford VEC
Joan Whelan
New Ross CDP
Barbara Roe
Kiltern Adult Education
Aine Whelan
Co. Waterford VEC
Zara Rogers
Co. Dublin VEC – Discovery Centre
Evelyn Frank
Co. Kildare VEC
Particia Rouillier
Longford Women’s Link
Margaret Wrenn
Castlemaine Family Resource Centre
Frances Ryan
Co. Wexford VEC
Renee Scully
HETAC
Josephine Sheedy
Limerick Community Education Network
Sile Sheehy
National Centre for Guidance in Education
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Appendix 2: Conference Agenda 10.30-10.50
WELCOME John Ryan, AONTAS President Official Opening Berni Brady, AONTAS Director
10.50-11.10
Keynote Speech Prof. Kathleen Lynch, Chair of Equality Studies, U.C.D.
11.10-11.35
DRAMA
11.35–11.55
Ms Síle deValera, Minister of State, Department of Education and Science
11.55-12.15PM
Mr Sean Gorman, Assistant Secretary, Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment
12.15-1.00PM
LISTENING & LEARNING SPACE
1.00-1.30PM
Ms Monika Oels, National Expert E.U. Directorate General of Education and Culture
1.30PM
LIGHT LUNCH
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