A pioneering adult education service in the south-east has attracted twice the expected level of demand. REGSA, the Regional Educational Guidance Service for Adults, was set up a year ago as a pilot project by the educational development centre at Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT).
The service aims to ease the difficulties experienced by adults entering education by providing information, advice and counselling to help them make choices to suit their needs.
A report on the EU-funded project was distributed to delegates attending a conference on lifelong learning at WIT on Monday. The report, published this summer by WIT, points out that career guidance was originally conceived as a mechanism for smoothing the transition of a young person from education into the world of work.
Until recently, however, the need for educational guidance for adults was largely ignored in Ireland. Institutions offering adult education provided information on their own programmes, but there was nowhere for people to obtain information on the range of options available or to receive guidance on choosing an educational route.
Two organisations which were the first to tackle that were the Limerick Adult Education Service and a project called "Options" in the Finglas/Cabra area of Dublin. REGSA is the first such service in the south-east, operating in Waterford, Wexford and south Tipperary.
The demand for the service, which is targeted at the socially excluded or those at risk of social exclusion, has been much higher than expected, running at 225 per cent of the expected figure during the first few months. In fact, the service, which has a consortium of partners from the statutory, voluntary and community sectors, has proved so successful that there are already fears about the potential loss to the region if it is not put on a sounder footing.
The WIT report recommends that the service receive funding from the Department of Education and Science for at least three years. Ms Anne Jordan, the guidance project manager at WIT, says there is a "very firm principle" behind it, that any adult without access to information, support and counselling on their educational and vocational needs is disadvantaged, whatever their social or economic standing.
"Therefore our target group is in reality a broad one . . . It includes workers affected by the change from manufacturing to knowledge-based industries; early school-leavers; women not on the live register and those who might have dropped out of college and are now seeking a second chance to gain qualifications.
"Essentially, it includes all those lifelong learners who are seeking to map out educational opportunities for themselves and are often lacking any direction."
