On his first day of school, Pat Fitzsimons from Dublin, Ireland, was bullied. From that moment on, he did not like school. He struggled through it until he could finally leave at the age of 15, lacking even basic skills.
After leaving school, Pat was employed at a knitwear factory before working on a building site. His supervisors noticed his potential and offered him an apprenticeship to become a plasterer. As a plasterer, he earned enough money to get by. But even then, it bothered him that he was not able to read and write. One in six adults in the Republic of Ireland do not have basic literacy skills. Pat was one of them.
When Pat found he could no longer work in construction, he knew he had to take action. He slowly learned to read and turned to something he had always been good at: the arts. Nightly art classes were the re-entry point to his education journey. His teacher, Karen, spotted Pat’s talent and encouraged him to go to art college. While his first reaction was: 'No, college is not for me!', Karen insisted that Pat would do well at art college. Empowered by her, Pat went to the Institute of Design and Technology in Dublin where a great team of teachers encouraged him further to pursue his learning journey.
Being on a low income, he applied for financial support. College staff helped Pat fill out forms and apply for a grant. The grant provided him with the economic means to concentrate on his studies, in which he excelled: a learning experience altogether different from that of his school years. After four years of hard work, the day of graduation came.
Now 60 years of age, Pat was recently selected as a Dublin Learning City Champion and was awarded a certificate of achievement by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Caroline Conroy. The learning opportunities provided to Pat by the UNESCO learning city of Dublin have changed his life. The right to education across all ages became a reality for him.
Background
The UNESCO learning city of Dublin's programmes aim at providing lifelong learning opportunities for everyone. The city empowers and enables citizens to learn, regardless of age or cultural background, in traditional and non-traditional settings. Dublin is a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities. The network supports and improves the practice of lifelong learning in member cities by promoting policy dialogue and peer learning, documenting effective strategies and good practice, fostering partnerships, providing capacity development, and developing tools and instruments to design, implement and monitor learning cities strategies.
