Education scheme hinders job-seeker prospects

Further research is being carried out into why participants in a back-to-education scheme that has cost €1.5bn over 17 years are less likely to move into jobs than other unemployed people.

An Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) study found the Back to Education Allowance (BTEA) programme does not appear effective in its core objective of helping the unemployed into work.

Compared to similarly unemployed people, jobseekers who started a course supported by BTEA in 2008 were up to 38% less likely to have got a job by June 2012. By 2014, they were still between 14% and 29% less likely to have left unemployment to go into work.