Tuesday, 09 March, 2010

Information News

Information Analysis Trends for the 1st half of 2009

  • To date a total of 4245 queries have been handled by AONTAS. This signifies an increase of approximately 1000 queries compared to the analysis of the same time frame last year.
  • There has been a marked increase in the number of males accessing the referral service with approximately two thirds of the queries coming from men.
  • The majority of people contacting the service are considering returning to education due to losing their job in the down turn. 2785 individuals stated they were unemployed, 1936 of these indicated they were newly unemployed having lost their jobs in the past year. Many of these individuals comment on suffering from low self-esteem lack of confidence and fear of failure.
  • Finance and childcare continue to be a barrier for unwaged and unemployed clients wishing to return to education. Many people recently unemployed are seeking to up-skill or retrain and their biggest concern is funding for courses and meeting childcare costs. 3287 stating they wanted information on course options and funding available to them.
  • The majority of people contacting the service are from Leinster-2965 individuals stated they were from the Dublin area.
  • 1967 individuals were hoping to return to full-time higher education and 1626 were seeking part-time courses.
  • 68% of learners contacting the service in 2009 indicated that knowing where to access information is a barrier in itself. Eligibility criteria continues to be problematic for many learners with over 87 people stating they found it difficult to make an informed decision specifically when returning to third level.
  • 681 individuals contacting the service had fears of losing benefits. 742 queries were from individuals seeking to find out information about BTEA.
  • 91 individuals contacting the service stated they had been given inaccurate information on options available them and this lead to further confusion regarding their benefits.
  • 25 queries were from lone parents under 23 being assessed under their parents income for Maintenance Grant purposes
  • 76% of individuals contacting the service had been out of education for more than ten years with a further 49% of individuals stating they had been out of education for more than twenty years.
  • The online facility for people to e-mail continues to be the main way in which people contact the Service and this year over 2700 people emailing the Information & Research Officer with queries.
  • There has been an increase in the amount of organisations and groups seeking information regarding funding with approximately 180 queries being handled from this sector in the first six months of this year.
  • 3921 individuals requested a copy of the Information Booklet.
  • In the past two months there has been an increase in employers contacting the service with over 9 companies wanting to promote up-skilling to their employees and all of these requested copies of the information booklet.
  • 15 queries were from people with disabilities seeking to get information on learning aids.