`Trying to look for something in the dark" is Shirley's evocative description of attempting to find information about third-level courses.

Shirley, now in her 40s, left school after the Inter Cert and is a lone parent. She wanted to study counselling but didn't how to set about it. ,"I didn't know where to go. I had not gone to any agencies, feeling `who would I go to?' " she recalls.

Shirley was introduced to the Regional Education Guidance Service for Adults in Waterford IT. Now she is studying for a foundation certificate at that institute.

The experience of Shirley and 11 other adults is depicted in a thought-provoking report called Looking for something in the dark: the disadvantage caused by the lack of adult educational guidance. The research was carried out by Maeve O'Grady as part of an INTEGRA project at Waterford IT.

One particularly striking aspect of the report is the interviewees' descriptions of the length of time they had spent trying to identify relevant courses and qualifications.

Eamon, an early school-leaver now in his 40s, said his interest in finding something was longstanding. Meanwhile 30-year-old Paul had spent 10 years trying out different ways and different courses before he identified his choice. Eve, in her early 20s, had been looking for the four years.

Veronica, in her 40s, took modules over a period of time. The series of courses she did "gave me an insight into my own needs", she says. "I had to discover for myself what my needs really were." However, it took her four years to find a focus - "four years that you really don't have, floundering around".

She says this delay was due to "basically lack of self-confidence, lack of self-worth - there was no lack of motivation. "I needed the input of others who had either been there or could see in me a potential."

Veronica is now an undergraduate, studying by distance education.

Many of the adults described difficulties in deciding on a subject area, getting information from relevant institutions and finding out what qualifications were needed. Getting course details was also a problem.

The available information appears to be too complex to be manageable. "If you were looking through a prospectus," Eamon says, "you would be completely all over the place."

These early school-leavers say that giving up formal education was the norm for their cohort - but they now have feelings of missing out and wanting to return to education. Betty and Kathy, both in their 50s, would have had to pay for second-level education. "There wasn't a question, people left school and went into the first job that came. It was normal, all of my friends left and went to work." However, "over the years you kind of blamed yourself for not making an effort to do something."

Five of the 11 adults interviewed had used the service provided by the Regional Educational Guidance Service for Adults. Established in 1998 as a pilot project by the Educational Development Centre in Waterford IT, the centre has the aim of promoting "lifelong learning opportunities for adults at risk of social exclusion through the establishment of an educational guidance service". Breda, who left school after the Inter Cert and worked at home for 17 years, says: "Over the last ten years I have thought about education. I didn't actually look, I just got a prospectus from the college but thought there was nothing there for me."

The service, she says, "turns a vague thought into reality - that I can do something and there is a service there to help me and that there are things there I can do".

Eilish, who had been unemployed for two years, was referred to the guidance service by a Local Employment Service mediator. The mediator "told me about different schemes that I was entitled to, like Back to Work, Jobstart, Community Employment Schemes, and I wasn't aware of those before I came here."

She came to see the guidance counsellor "because I always wanted to do veterinary nursing and I did not know anything about it. "Martina (the guidance counsellor) would put me in touch and then it would be for me to decide if I really wanted to do it or not . . .

"I did not realise that for me to go ahead I would be entitled to a grant. I never realised that."

The Green Paper, Adult Education in an Era of Lifelong Learning, affirms the need for a comprehensive national adult guidance and counselling service. Published last November, it notes that existing guidance for adult learners is "both limited and fragmented".

The names used in the report and in this story are not the real names of the interviewees.