National Education Corp. Cuts Losses

National Education Corp. on Wednesday reported a net loss of $5.6 million for its first quarter, ended March 31, which is an improvement over a $8.4-million loss in the same period the year before.

Jack Polley, a company spokesman, said cost reduction is responsible for stemming losses of the struggling training and education company, headquartered in Irvine.

The company also reported first-quarter revenue of $84.7 million, compared to $85.4 million for the same period in 1990.

In the 1990 fourth quarter, ended Dec. 31, the company posted a $1.2-million profit.

Polley said that first-quarter earnings were consistent with management’s expectations and that the first half of the year is generally slow because the company’s trade schools, training contracts and textbook publishing divisions are on a sales cycle that picks up in August. He said cash flow remained positive throughout the quarter.

National Education lost $14.9 million last year and lost $29.3 million in 1989. The company has been trying to recover from a costly series of mix-ups involving several of its subsidiaries--particularly its Applied Learning International unit, which was formed in 1988 by merging three companies. Customers were either overbilled, undercharged or given services free. The subsidiary was supposed to extend the company’s training program from strictly vocational to include corporate clients.