Do I still need to Sign on? (Long) and a moan

CANYOUHELPME_2

TerryW

Yep on reflection was probably a humorous comment as you said

Been one of those morning's i think here in work !!!!

CANYOUHELPME_2

Have edited the post to remove the comment

elkay115

Did you check out the Individual Learning Account thing I mentioned in my earlier post. Here in Scotland, we seemingly have up to £200 worth of learning. I am looking into doing the ECDL through that and have found a college that lets you learn at home and then you just go into the College to sit each module and it is going to cost under the £200 (can't remember off hand how much now though). It's worth checking out if they have such a thing in England, if that is where you live.

CANYOUHELPME_2

Ellkay115

Thanks for that i will have look and see

CANYOUHELPME

LittleVoice

England used to have ILAs - and in fact I did my original ECDL that way in 2002. It meant, IIRC, I paid 10% (and at most 20%) of the cost of the course and the ILA met the rest. IT courses were more heavily subsidised than other courses. However, they were withdrawn a little later - because of problems of fraud.

The ILAs continue (under possibly different rules) in Scotland and I think Wales. But they are not available in England.

kazzah

CAN YOU HELP ME
we are in a similar position - hubby made redundant and has to sign on even though he doesn't get and JSA due to a VERY small private pension from another job.
Anyway - what i wanted to say is this- when hubby was retraining after his last job ( he was in fire service) he looked at MANY courses including ECDL
and neither he nor would recommend it to anyone who knows how to swithc a computer on - as that is the sort of stuff they cover!!!
he did get a FREE place on an Integrated Business Technology Course ( computing) at our local technical college ( they were much more helpful about free courses than DWP) and he did levels two and three- both were part time courses for about 12 weeks and cover AL the important stuff such as Microsoft office power point etc etc
my advice would be contact your local colleges and see if there are any funded courses she can try- but NOT ECDL !!!!! it's a complete waste of time
Kazzah

LittleVoice

kazzah wrote: »

CAN YOU HELP ME
we are in a similar position - hubby made redundant and has to sign on even though he doesn't get and JSA due to a VERY small private pension from another job.
Anyway - what i wanted to say is this- when hubby was retraining after his last job ( he was in fire service) he looked at MANY courses including ECDL
and neither he nor would recommend it to anyone who knows how to swithc a computer on - as that is the sort of stuff they cover!!!
he did get a FREE place on an Integrated Business Technology Course ( computing) at our local technical college ( they were much more helpful about free courses than DWP) and he did levels two and three- both were part time courses for about 12 weeks and cover AL the important stuff such as Microsoft office power point etc etc
my advice would be contact your local colleges and see if there are any funded courses she can try- but NOT ECDL !!!!! it's a complete waste of time
Kazzah

And did it not also cover how to use IF logical operators in spreadsheet formulae?; creating a database and producing reports from it?; inserting sound files into a presentation?; performing a mail merge in word processing?; how to save files attached to emails?; how to add information to the footer when printing a web page?; legal requirements?; etc, etc.

If he already knew how to do all of that, then he would have sailed through the tests and achieved the qualification.

blue_monkey_2

Just something else to mention, if your wife is not getting things from signing on except credits then how about she pays her Class 2 NI Contributions by DD, which are £2.10 a week at the moment I think- cheaper than getting the bus into town and signing on!

Your NI contributions will go towards SSP and Maternity Pay if she ever needed it.

It might be worth checking this out, also look at Business Link as they run some free courses to help people get started in Business such as on the PC and also Basic Book Keeping. Also HMRC might offer something I beleive, I remember being offered some free courses when I set up my own business. She does not have to actually start one but could enquire anyway.

blue_monkey_2

Here is the link to the pages, choose workshop, event or seminar and most of them are free:

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1074400185&r.s=b

bestpud

When your oh asks about courses, do they ask for your household income?

I'm wondering if your income is the problem, or is it different now? Learn Direct fees certainly used to be based on household income.

Does she already have qualifications at all?

Also, are you claiming tax credits?