Adult Education in the Republic of Ireland has experienced exponential change. Since 2013, the Further Education and Training (FET) sector has developed and implemented a range of strategies and policies transforming the landscape. Policy implementation is a complex process and as the 16 Education and Training Boards work to interpret FET policy…

Qualifications frameworks are tools for describing qualifications of an education or training system by classifying them into levels. Each level provides a clear description of what the holder of a qualification knows, understands and is able to do. They are important tools for making qualifications transparent and comprehensible, within and…

This article discusses a national partnership in Irish higher education between the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning and the sector. The partnership initiative focussed on the scalable design and development of a suite of open-access professional development (PD) courses in teaching and learning. The empirical work…

Social justice has been steadily gaining traction in physical education (PE) and physical education teacher education (PETE) for more than 40 years. During that time, scholars have argued for the importance of explicating the hidden curriculum, educating pre-service teachers (PSTs) about equality, sociocultural perspectives and issues, and most…

This chapter showcases the implementation of an E+VE (Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange) project in a 'broadening module' (elective content-specific modules offered across the university curricula) at the University of Limerick (UL), entitled 'Communication Across Cultures'. The pedagogical approach follows a blended learning model where face-to-face…

Increasing physical activity opportunities in schools has emerged as a global priority among school-aged youth. As a result, many countries have designed and implemented whole-of-school physical activity initiatives that seek to increase physical activity opportunities that are available to school-aged children before, during, and after school.…

Cork, the Republic of Ireland's second most populous city, is one of 12 UNESCO Learning Cities globally. Becoming a learning city requires a sophisticated audit of education, learning and other socio-economic indicators. It also demands that cities become proactively engaged in delivering to the objectives set by the "Beijing Declaration on…

UNESCO established the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) to encourage the development of learning cities. By providing technical support, capacity development, and a platform where members can share ideas on policies and best practice, this international exchange network helps urban communities create thriving learning cities. The…

This article describes the development and implementation of an open-access organic chemistry question bank for online tutorials and assessments at University College Cork and Dublin Institute of Technology. SOCOT (structure-based organic chemistry online tutorials) may be used to supplement traditional small-group tutorials, thereby allowing…

The Transition Year (TY) programme is an optional, one-year, stand-alone, full-time programme offered in 75% of second-level schools in the Republic of Ireland. Aimed at those in the 15-16 age group, TY has a strong focus on personal and social development and on education for active citizenship. The implementation of TY in schools is seen as a…

Drawing on experiences from anti-bullying programmes in Norway and Ireland, our primary objective in this paper is to present and discuss similarities and differences in national contexts, delivery strategies and strategies at school level for implementation of the ABC (Ireland) and Zero (Norway) anti-bullying programmes. Both programmes are…

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, advances in the sociology of childhood and the consumer rights movement have placed the spotlight on children's rights in society, challenging those working with children to examine how they share power and ensure that children's views are taken on board. While children's service…

Based on case studies of a Dutch adult-education organization and an Irish residential center for mentally handicapped people, this article discusses some implementation dilemmas that occur when organizations face challenging innovations. Conflicting pressures for centralization and local autonomy in implementation activities and for unified and…

This paper provides an account of the design, development and implementation of a postvention model of responding to the needs of families within a community following the aftermath of a tragic event, including suicide. This model was developed for a specific disadvantaged urban community. The paper includes the context of the need for such an…

Recent experience of test development in Ireland, which had no tradition of formal standardized testing, is described, in order to highlight a number of practical and psychometric problems. It is pointed out that some conventional procedures for developing norm-referenced attainment tests have limitations, especially in countries with centralized…