WOMEN are being trained to land themselves a plumb job in a male-dominated job.

A two-year, women-only NVQ II certificate course in plumbing has been set up at Coleg Gwent's site in Pontypool.

The aim is to encourage its 15 female students to join the traditionally male-dominated trade and stop seeing plumbing as merely a pipe dream.

Women who want to try their hands at unclogging drains and installing taps can also take advantage of free child care and transport.

Mary Douglas, of Women's Workshop, who has co-ordinated the course, said: "We work on the Jive project with careers companies and learning providers to see what we can do to get more women into the construction industry, the sciences and other areas where they're under-represented. "The opportunities are often there but there are barriers, often social, that prevent that kind of thing.

"We want to make it easier for women to walk into careers like this and have as much of a chance of succeeding as the men there."

Rob Gilvear, director of marketing for Coleg Gwent, agreed. "Hopefully this course will go a long way to redressing that imbalance. And if it's successful, creating other women-only courses would certainly be something that we'd look at."

ALISON Giallelis is the manager of Aquarius Maintenance, a plumbing business in Newport.

And she confirmed that the business is generally seen as a male preserve.

"My partner is one of our plumbers, and I have gone out with him and assisted him at times," she said. "I've fitted a radiator.

"There aren't many women in the industry at all. I used to work on ships and my partner was an engineer, which is how we met, and there were a few Russian ladies who did engineering.

"But I've never met a female plumber in this country. I don't know why, but it's not something that women do.

"I can't see why a woman couldn't do it. It's a dirty job and there is heavy lifting involved but there are women in the construction industry. There was a shortage of plumbers a few years ago but now everyone seems to want to do it."