Return-to-work Skills

HC Deb 05 May 2004 vol 420 c1588W

Mr. Neil Turner

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many women in Wigan have visited an information and communications technology training centre in order to learn skills to return to work. [169361]

Mr. Ivan Lewis

In the period October 2003¹—March 2004, 5,200 people visited a UK online centre in Wigan; 2,912 (56 per cent.) of these people were women. Since Learndirect was launched in 1999, 6,066 people from Wigan have enrolled on a Learndirect course. 3,331 (55 per cent.) of these people were women. Of the total number of women who enrolled on a course, 8 per cent. did so in order to learn skills to return to work. ¹Please note the complete statistics are not available for UK online prior to September 2003 as the DIES did not collect these data on a centre-by-centre basis.