Seamus celebrates Aussie award
A Wexford businessman who invested €15 million in Australia’s largest supplementary educational resource publisher has seen the company win a prestigious industry award in Melbourne for the second year in a row.
The CEO of RIC Publications and founder of Prim-Ed Publishing in New Ross, Seamus McGuinness,is celebrating the company’s 30th anniversary in style after R.I.C. Publications overcame tough competition to win the educational Primary Publisher of the Year award for a second year in succession, at the Australian Publishers Association (APA) Educational Publishing Awards.
The company, which is based in Marshmeadows and currently employs 85 people, was also shortlisted in the Primary Student Resource – Mathematics category for its 2016 release The Maths Box, which is widely used in Irish classrooms and is one of its top-selling resources in Ireland this year.
The prestigious annual awards ceremony, considered the Academy Awards of the educational publishing industry, rewards excellence and innovation in the industry, and has been taking place for twenty one years. Entries are judged by a panel of peers, and each year teachers and booksellers vote for the coveted Publisher of the Year award.
RIC Publications is the largest supplementary educational resource publisher in Australia, and New Ross-based Seamus McGuinness directs the group which also owns operations in the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Malaysia and New Zealand. His daughter, Ruth McGuinness, accepted the award on behalf of the expanding company.
The awards are a massive coup for a publisher that started thirty years ago in a garden shed, when three teachers created resources that they considered more relevant to their classrooms than those available at that time.
‘While a lot has happened over those thirty years, the very same ground rules still apply today – creating new products to solve problems and challenges that teachers encounter every day in the classroom,’, said Mr. McGuinness.
‘ Tailoring resources for teachers, for use in classrooms all over the world, that engage pupils and help them to learn and engage, is the cornerstone of everything we do. This remains the fundamental premise which underpins our decision-making at all levels and will always remain so.
‘We are privileged to be honoured by the industry for the second year in a row and to celebrate with our peers. We have grown organically and strategically over the years and this great endorsement from the industry, booksellers and the teachers who use our resources every single day in their classrooms makes all the work and all the effort so worthwhile.
‘We take pride in all our resources, many of which have been created with the input of Irish teachers. Teachers are best placed to know and understand what is needed in the classroom,’ he said.