As a result of new adult education funding arrangements announced by the Further Education Funding Council for England in Spring 2000, short courses of 3 or 6 hours duration were developed that concentrated on basic skills, information and communications technology (ICT), and general lifelong learning subjects. Courses were designed as minicourses or introductory modules but were not necessarily linked to degree or certificate qualification. Twenty post-secondary institutions participated in the program and were interviewed for this evaluation. Students taking the courses tended to be female, aged 60 and over, and Caucasian. Courses taken by those identified as members of an ethnic minority were predominantly English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). The goal of the initiative was to attract new learners into courses that could provide progression opportunities. The program was considered successful because the courses were valuable in providing an introduction to learning itself. These areas of concern were among those raised by the evaluation: (1) inadequate institution systems to determine how new "new" learners were; (2) limited progression opportunities based upon learners' goals; (3) low enrollment in basic skills courses; and (4) administrative time spent on short courses being the same as that spent on longer ones. (AJ)