ADULT education chiefs need to radically re-think their policies and practices to encourage more men back into learning.

That's the conclusion of research carried out by Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council's education and lifelong learning department, which looked into why more women than men take up learning opportunities.

The Male Adult Learning Experience (MALE) project, sponsored by the Lancashire Learning Skills Council, worked closely with a cross-section of Blackburn and Darwen men aged 16 to 60 plus, ranging from refuse collectors, taxi drivers and funeral directors, to those without jobs and has just published its findings.

The latest figures show that out of 2,000 students on adult education courses in 2002/2003, around 75 per cent, or almost 1,500, were women.

Coun Mahfooz Hussain, executive member for education and lifelong learning, said: "It's a very complex issue but we did find broad themes emerging which call for a radical re-think of how adult education is organised to meet the specific needs of men.

"The most surprising finding is that men see education as something for women, not for themselves. There's a lack of male role models in adult education and they feel education providers aren't taking men's needs into account.

"Men feel education providers are simply offering programmes they've been using for years to entice women out of the home and into learning. Society has moved on since then but adult education hasn't.

"The research also showed that men who reject learning had negative experiences at school. They associate learning with feeling inadequate and worthless and simply don't want to go through that again so they brand it useless and irrelevant. "

It also found men responded more positively to learning which focused on their existing strengths, or if it was work-related.

Project manager, Alison Smith, said: "Our restaurant workers group organised a course on new licensing legislation affecting the trade.

"We included literacy and numeracy work in that, yet none of the men saw that as a benefit - their focus was entirely on understanding the new legislation."

The research will now be used to tailor learning programmes to men in Blackburn with Darwen and to produce a good practice tool kit.