WHEN Keith O’Connor (41) was laid off from his construction job two years ago he faced the daunting prospect of finding work. The task was all the more difficult because he could not write and had difficulty reading.
“I was made redundant at the start of the downturn,” O’Connor, who is from Farranree in Cork city, explained.
Like the rest of his family he left school early and at 14 he went out to work on the roads. “We weren’t really taught much of anything in school. We were taught how to count up a week’s wages and write our name and address and that was it really. Up until two years ago I was still using my mother’s address when I had to get insurance or stuff like that because it was the only address I could spell.”
After he was made redundant Keith decided to become a taxi driver. But there was one major setback. “You had to do a written test. I decided then that it was the time to go back to school. My wife saw an ad in the paper and so I went back to adult education through Nala .”
O’Connor was asked to take part in a TV show called Written Off, which traced eight people as they returned to education to address their literacy problems.
While he was considering whether or not to take part, he asked some friends for their advice. “I was telling the lads about it . . . It’s not really the sort of thing that lads would usually talk about, but I’d say that out of the 20 or so people that were there, 15 turned round and told me that they were in a similar position to me.”
O’Connor says that the number of people living with literacy difficulties in Ireland is not fully realised because those affected become so good at hiding the problem.Even O’Connor’s two sons had no idea that their father had difficulty reading and writing.
“I hid it from them. If they came in from school asking me to help them with their homework I used to make up excuses.”
Having returned to take literacy classes, he passed the taxi exam and is now back at work. He says the decision to return to education has given him a new lease of life. “It’s given me great self-confidence.”