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12th Cork International Lifelong Learning Festival - 23-28 March 2015
The 12th Cork International Lifelong Learning Festival will take place from March 23 to 28 this year. As always it will feature a full range of learning activities for people of all ages, all interests and all needs. The week is Cork's main lifelong learning event and is aimed at vastly increasing the numbers of people committed to learning at whatever level. Last year my wife, Maggie, and I attended the 2014 Festival and were overwhelmed by the variety of learning opportunities offered - music, literature, current affairs, meetings, discussions, fun learning events and a lot more.
This year there will be a special event on the UNESCO Global Newtork of Learning Cities (GNLC) initiative (Cork is a member and is contributing a case study of its progress for the publication to be released at this year's UNESCO conference in Mexico City).
The 12th Cork Lifelong Learning Festival highlights the huge range of learning opportunities available for all ages with 500 free events for everyone to enjoy. The festival shows that learning is fun. Lifelong learning is not only about adult and continuing education, and is more than acquiring skills and qualifications – it's a process which lasts throughout our lives, and includes all kinds of learning – from crafts, IT, languages, to the arts, sports, cookery, history, heritage, genealogy and a whole lot more - and the festival reflects that with its range of events.
Events take place all over the city as organisations throw open their doors to welcome the public. Some events take place on the streets, others in libraries, in family and community centres, schools, colleges, shopping centres, sports grounds, theatres, galleries, on the river. They include performances, taster classes, demonstrations, talks, tours, debates and more.
The festival has grown from 65 events in 2004 to over 500 over its 11 years. From the beginning it has been inclusive, encouraging participation from everyone. Although aimed primarily at the people of Cork, the festival also welcomes visitors to the city.
Newsletters and brochures are available from [email protected]. Visitors will, of course, be extra welcome.
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Cork Festival
Thanks for this inspiring update Norman. It is a remerkable story. Can you put a finger on why this has grown so explosively in Cork; and whether and how others might perhaps emulate in their own ways? What are the sepcial features, maybe special people, that explain it?
cork festival
Hi Chris
Good to hear from you again. I guess I put Cork's success down to 4 factors
1. A very enthusisatic local authority team led particularly by 2 people with vision - Tina Neylon and Denis Barrett
2. A set of policies and strategies that address the key local authority concerns of social inclusion, economic development and environmental responsibility through explicit lifelong learning projects
3. A desire for Cork to be recognised as an outward-looking leader in the field by a number of the administrators and especially politicians, who are therefore supportive of these initiatives. This is partly fueled by rivalry with Limerick and Dublin to be No 1 in Ireland for vision. Cork is a member of several other city networks based on sustainability, sea-faring and learning cities, including the UNESCO GNLC - recent political changes may affect this (the deputy Lord Mayor, who championed the LLL focus was voted out of the council last May).
4. The influence of visiting 'experts', particular Peter Kearns, who sold them the ECCOWELL vision and Mike Osborne - I also did my bit by presenting both to practitioners and politicians last year.
I have been working with UIL in the past months on a number of Learning City Case Studies from around the world and these will be published in time for the 2nd GNLC conference in Mexico City in May. Interesting work in its diversity of viewpoints and the extent to which cities have implemented (or not) the concepts that we might think are important. The overall scene is that many cities are aware of the Learning City idea, mainly through the UIL project, but have little idea of how to start implementing it. Some however, like Cork, Espoo, Swansea, Beijing and a couple of Korean examples stand out, each with their own focus. The Australian contribution comes from Melton - and that is an interesting approach with which Leone has been involved. You will be able to see the comparative analysis I have done, together with the full case studies when they are published for the May conference. It will also be available for PASCAL to broadcast and hopefully follow up on.
Hope to see you again soon and that Liz is keeping well.
Norman