cancelled courses

My brother is just after telling me that that a course he had applied for had been cancelled: reason not enough applicants for course to start.


Joan Burton said on a TV interview a while back people on the dole need/should return to education to improve their prospects of getting a job.

OK, so stop cancelling courses! It should not matter if there is 1 or 100 applicants course should go ahead, if it gets one person more back in a job, would it not be worth it?

If only 1 of an expected 100 signed up? Cancell it. Doing otherwise would be a waste of state money.

I did a course last year and there was such strong demand it was anticipated from the start that they would be run a second class in the course.

However, both classes had to reach their target populations, from the point of view of the course provider and the course financier.

My class was delayed by a month or so to allow time for applications to top up.

The reason for this became clear during the course.

The rate of attrition was very high 40% or so.

This affected group work numbers hugely.

This in turn affected morale later on.

So its not just about attending a course on the part of the students -

- the finances of the course have to be shown to be costs effective - running a course for just one person would be hugely wasteful of resources.

- the internal dynamics of the course need to be sufficient to allow the group work in the course to occur as required.

- good student morale is a factor in completing the work and a low starter population can mitigate against this.

Good points ONQ.

ONQ re
- the finances of the course have to be shown to be costs effective - running a course for just one person would be hugely wasteful of resources.

FAS paid for courses which never happened!!

No real credit to any deep thinking by me Purple, I saw it first hand and learnt a heck of a lot doing that course, about myself and others - and about how courses are run.

At one time I was thinking of doing the train-a-trainer course so I was all eyes and ear open to see how things were done.

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hastalavista, that's a fact and this course started after all the bruhaha was well up in the Meeja, but I got the impression that this was normal not special practice in the running of the course in question.

That was delivered by the Business Management Institute in Fás Loughlinstown, in its day an award winning building by A & D Wejchert Architects.

the course was delivered by the Business Management Institute [BMI] using the Fás premises, canteen and support infrastructure [PCs and printing services etc.].

Its possible that BMI were paid based on the numbers of attendees at course commencement, so the course couldn't have started with very low numbers.

ONQ.

johnwilliams said:

the brother is just after telling me that that a course he had applied for had been cancelled, reason not enough applicants for course to start.
joan burton said on a tv interview a while back people on the dole need/should return to education to improve their prospects of getting a job
ok so stop cancelling courses, should not matter if there is 1 or 100 applicants course should go ahead, if it gets one person more back in a job, would it not be worth it?

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Unless you are in receipt of a social security payment..be this only €1 a week, you can apply for back to education.
If you do not qualify for the dole, namely tens of thousands of self employed construction workers, you are in no way shape or form eligible for long term back to education courses nor any FAS ran short term course.
No dole no re education. The self employed shafted again.

Perhaps Joan Burton you might like to make your opinion heard on this deplorable situation.

Don't want to go off topic but why don't the self employed get dole then?
Do they pay PRSI? Or are they paying enough PRSI?

I know I pay and my employer pays.

So are the self employed not making enough contributions?

The self employed pay a different stamp..the compulsory S stamp contribution, there is no other option, on top of huge amounts of tax. The S stamp does not unlike other contributions mean you can claim job seekers if out of work. If for example there is an income in the house, perhaps the wife (or husband) works full time, the household income alongside last years self employed persons income is calculated. (even though of course that income is long gone on basic living) The household income is then combined and of course will virtually always be over the threshold to claim job seekers, leaving said self employed individual with no income and worst still absolutely no means to re educate themselves as ALL FAS and long term courses you have to be in receipt of a social security payment to qualify.
In essence the self employed are hung out to dry with no means of assistance.

A very common occurence is the self employed person who perhaps employed three or four people on the books, those on the books were laid off and because they paid a different contribution to the bosses S stamp they of course are full entitled to the Dole, the boss who is classeed as self employed and paid tens of thousands of euro in to the economy in the form of tax is entitled to not one single solitary red cent.

legs-akimbo said:

...the boss who is classeed as self employed and paid tens of thousands of euro in to the economy in the form of tax is entitled to not one single solitary red cent.

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Not forgetting that this also artificially disguises the Live Register figures also as all these former self empolyed people are not in receipt of any payment and are not counted in the Live Register totals.

AFAIK, anyone unemployed is free to register as such and though they may not be entitled to payment, they may become entitled to certain courses depending on how long they've been signing on.

Staples said:

AFAIK, anyone unemployed is free to register as such and though they may not be entitled to payment, they may become entitled to certain courses depending on how long they've been signing on.

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I think you will find this is not so. Prerequisite is YOU MUST be in receipt of a payment ..be this a mere one uro per week.

hastalavista said:

ONQ re
- the finances of the course have to be shown to be costs effective - running a course for just one person would be hugely wasteful of resources.

FAS paid for courses which never happened!!

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20 years ago I did 6 months work experience with 2 friends from college in a FAS office, they paid us by putting us down as attending a block laying course. In hindsight, and given that they never gave me anything concrete to do in the office (no pun intended) I think we were taken on so they could say the course was full.