OMEP Ireland Award

Aisling Burke, supervised by Dr Sinéad McNally at Dublin City University Institute of Education, has won OMEP Ireland’s prestigious Early Childhood Student of the Year Award. Aisling was awarded this national prize for her dissertation research on the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education, Exploring Early Childhood Educators’ Perspectives and Practices of Parenting Support within Irish Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) Settings. 

Following a rigorous review process, the judging panel congratulated Aisling on a submission ‘written to a very high standard ready for publication’. On presenting the award at the OMEP Ireland Conference today, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’Gorman noted the novelty and unique contribution of Aisling’s research to the ECEC sector.

The theme of the OMEP Ireland conference was ‘Celebrating Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care in Times of Crisis’ and the judges noted the especially challenging year for students during the pandemic, commending Dr McNally on her ‘work in terms of nurturing and supporting Aisling to produce such an interesting and valuable contribution to the field of Early Childhood Education and Care’. 

[Pictured is OMEP Ireland Student of the Year Aisling Burke and supervisor Dr Sinéad McNally from the School of Language, Literacy and Early Childhood Education.]