Men fall behind in education, centre finds

MEN across all age-groups in Ireland have lower levels of education than women, a Southside-based community centre has found.

Speaking at D8CEC’s annual awards ceremony for adult learners, Chairperson Michael Hallissy said it has traditionally been extremely difficult to engage men in second-chance education.

“Across all age-groups, men in Ireland have lower levels of educational attainment than women,

? he said.

“The last Census showed that 14 per cent of men aged 35 to 64 had only completed primary schooling or had no formal education at all; 18 per cent had only lower secondary education; and 22 per cent had finished their formal education after completing secondary school.

“For women, the corresponding figures are higher in all cases.

“Ironically, however, it has always been far more difficult to attract men into second-chance education than women.

“In adult learning centres throughout Ireland, it is the norm to have nine or 10 female learners for every male.

“This challenge of encouraging men to participate in second-chance education became ever more pressing with the recession of recent years, when thousands of men who left school early to take up low-skilled, manual jobs suddenly found themselves unemployed.

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Mr Hallissy added:

“D8CEC is extremely rare amongst adult learning providers because we have consistently attracted high numbers of male learners and, for the past two years, we have actually achieved a 50-50 gender balance.

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At the awards ceremony, 103 learners from D8CEC received certificates of achievement, of which 47 were men.

The certificates marked the learners’ completion of a range of courses at FETAC levels 3, 4 and 5 earlier this year, including: Computer Literacy; IT Skills; Computer Applications; Advanced Internet; Communications; Mathematics; English as a second language; Bookkeeping; and Payroll.

One of the learners who received a certificate was Martin Gore (55) from Ballyfermot.
He enrolled in D8CEC in 2012, and has since completed courses in Mathematics and Computer Applications, both at FETAC Level 4.

“I finished school early, when I was only 16,

? he said.

“I was out of work for a couple of years before I went back to education, but before that, when I was working, I never needed computer skills, so I knew hardly anything about using computers.

“Now, at D8CEC, I have completed up to FETAC Level 5 in Computer Applications and, next year, I’m planning to do Mathematics at Level 5, which is the same as Leaving Cert Maths.

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Further information about D8CEC is available at: www.d8cec.com