National Education Still Operating in Red : Restructuring: Company loses $82 million in second quarter. Officials cite charges related to downsizing.

Struggling National Education Corp. continued to post hefty losses in the second quarter, the company reported Tuesday.

The Irvine vocational education company, which has made top-level management changes and is shedding its chain of education centers in an effort to reverse its fortunes, lost $82 million, or $2.72 a share, compared with a loss of $51 million, or $1.72 a share, in the same period last year.

Nearly $78 million of the second-quarter losses this year, however, were onetime charges related to restructuring the company’s National Education Training Group, which supplies educational and multimedia products, and closing the centers, which provide post-secondary career training, the company said. The charges also included $1.6 million for executive severance payments and other corporate restructuring costs. Jerome W. Cwiertnia, the company’s chief executive, retired in May.

“Now that we brought the cost structure in line, National Education Training Group will be profitable by 1996,” said Sam Yau, who became National Education Corp.’s co-chairman and chief executive in May.

An agreement signed in June with Microsoft Corp. to develop interactive training software will substantially improve next year’s prospects, the company says.

Second-quarter revenue rose 7% to $62.3 million from $58.3 million a year ago.

National Education Corp.’s two other companies posted stronger results. ICS Learning Systems, a correspondence school serving 400,000 students, reported operating income of $5.2 million as revenues rose 21% to $35.7 million. Steck-Vaughn, an educational publishing company, had operating income of $2.9 million on revenue of $15.3 million, up slightly from year-earlier revenue.

In the first six months, National Education Corp. lost $90.5 million, or $3.03 a share, compared with losses of $64.3 million, or $2.17 a share, in the same period last year. Revenue rose 9.6% to $118.2 million from $107.8 million.

The company’s stock closed at $5.50 Tuesday, up 12.5 cents in New York Stock Exchange trading.