Leeward College

where can i find the best government funded training courses?

I will be made redundant in Feb 2009, i am looking for plumbing training courses but cannot find any info on government funded courses for the unemployed. Any ideas?

Public Comments

1. sorry to hear your news You can look on the direct gov site (1st link), this site has a lot of useful info and may be handy to check your rights and entitlements re redundancy. The government has a link with learn direct which is advertised a lot on tv. My personal experience (a while ago) was that they were useless and really didn't know much about what was going on locally to me, hopefully your experience will be better but don't give up if they say there doesn't seem to be anything around that suits you. Otherwise it really is a lottery - check out your local college (they will have subsidised courses for the unemployed) and you may have to juggle your leaving date to fit in with the start of a course. The job centre should have info on local training providers who run free or subsidised courses (these are often computer skills related but there maybe something more suitable). Again job centre staff will be variable in their knowledge of what there is locally (often not even being aware of things that are advertised within the job centre) and what your entitlements are, so ask different people at the same job centre. It's good that you are forwad planning, just keep looking and good luck!
2. There aren't actually government funded re-training courses for the unemployed anymore, they used to be called TOPS and were phased out I think in the early eighties, they just want you to apply for jobs now and offer you courses of further jobseeking skills after you have been unemployed for a while. Have a look at this website though for starters that you might get something from, it's the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering: http://www.iphe.org.uk/ If you are signing on for JSA you are allowed to do a course if it's under 16 hours a week, so most people use their local colleges to retrain where they get a reduced fee as they are unemployed, and most course are under 16 hours a week. I'm not sure if you get the reduced fee if you are on contribution based rather than income based JSA, but look at the website of a local college that offers plumbing. There are fast track private courses offered by various companies, depending on how much you are able to pay, I found this but Google for plumbing training and you will probably find others: http://www.avand.co.uk/ Good luck.