Dr Dorothy Eagleson:DOROTHY EAGLESON had all the advantages of a good education – Richmond Lodge Grammar School, Belfast, and Queen's University Belfast – but she also had a passion for helping those who had not been so lucky.
This, combined with her determination to provide effective assistance, led to her pioneering work in Northern Ireland for an educational guidance service for adults which was to have influence across Britain, Ireland and beyond.
When she was working as a Belfast-based youth employment worker in the 1960s, Eagleson noticed that many parents and other adults who had missed out on education were asking her for advice. She realised that adults needed guidance on matters that were far wider than options offered to school leavers.
In 1967, with support from the Northern Ireland Council of Social Service and funding from the Clement Wilson Trust, she established an independent adult educational counselling unit which became known as Egsa – the Educational Guidance Service for Adults. Three years later, the government agreed to grant aid to the service.
One of Egsa’s main strengths was its ability to offer help in a relaxed, informal setting where confidentiality was guaranteed.
Without advertising itself, the service quickly built up a demand among adults who had failed to fully realise their potential and were working in jobs below their capabilities or those whose life plans had been knocked off course for one reason or another.
There was a constant flow of people who needed to retrain following redundancy. Significant numbers of clients whose physical or mental health had suffered, including many victims of the Troubles, were also referred to Egsa as part of the rehabilitation process.
Eagleson was particularly interested in supporting people who needed help to improve their literacy skills. In 1975, when the BBC broadcast its On the Move series on Sunday evenings, Egsa was invited to set up the adult literacy phone line in Northern Ireland.
Eagleson gathered a team of volunteers, many from Queen’s Women Graduates Association, to help her deal with calls. In the first few weeks, they responded to 430 calls from people needing help and more than 140 from people wishing to become volunteer tutors.
In 1978, government funding was withdrawn. The decision met strong resistance from a combination of interests, including clients, education providers, community and voluntary organisations, health and social care agencies, trade unions, politicians and a range of supporting organisations from across the UK.
Spearheading the campaign in Northern Ireland, the Rev Sydney Callaghan, director of the Northern Ireland branch of the Samaritans, wrote a letter to the press – his list of signatories filled three foolscap pages.
The issue was raised in an adjournment debate in the House of Commons and shortly afterwards Egsa’s funding was restored. It survives to this day.
Eagleson’s influence extended far beyond Northern Ireland.
A founder member of the National Association for Educational Guidance for Adults in the UK, she was invited by the executive committee to be its first president, a position she held for 16 years until 1998.
Dr Diana Ironside of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education said in her detailed study of Egsa: “The great increase in educational brokering services in the US and its marked support in legislation and funds owes a good deal to such pioneering efforts as the Belfast service.”
Eagleson led the organisation until her retirement from Egsa in 1989, but continued to work to improve the lives of adults and to support organisations such as Queen’s Women Graduates Association, the United Nations Association and the Workers Educational Association.
On hearing of her death, a colleague wrote: “Dorothy was the founder of adult guidance, establishing an understanding of adult needs and an ethos we have all tried with varying levels of success to maintain. She also by example showed us all that you can change things if you are sufficiently determined.”
Dorothy Eagleson: born July 15th, 1923; died August 3rd, 2010.