to be shocked at the demise of adult education?

My original post was responding to someone else, that's all. The point is that her local college does do academic/professional classes in the evenings for adults. She could have chosen that option if she'd wanted to.

I am always depressed by the general public acceptance of the apparent government view that education is only to make us better employees.

Education is good for its own sake!

@strawgoh that's not really "day release" though. She's just changed the hours she works and is doing it in her spare time.
I assume it's for a specific qualification (accounting?).
It's good that courses for specific qualifications still exist but the OP appeared to be talking about ones that people do just because they are a bit bored and want to meet people.
The government can't afford to fund as many of those ones I am afraid.
Sad....but true 🙁

She's not doing it as part of work. She rearranged her part-time hours so she didn't work that day. Her employer is not paying for the course. Evening classes were available for this course, but would have taken two years instead of one.

There are several colleges near us who do offer part-time evening classes. I might go and look them up to see what they are offering. I know they don't appear to do GCSEs or A levels any more though, they all seem to be recreational, like photography, cake decorating and creative writing.

I'd put a teeny percentage tax on all City of London transactions to fund education. We all paid to bail out the banks. They can pay a small contribution to the gaiety of nations.

I'd cut all contracts to for-profit companies in all community service-related industries: health, transport, housing, education. Using business models for social infrastructure has stripped us of so much. If profit is the aim then of course everything is cut to the bone.

Short online course list | Professional and Continuing Education https://share.google/Gq4West15rSih07t5

These are offered by the outreach team at Cambridge (you don't have to have been to Cambridge) and are good quality. Half price for state school teachers!

West Dean is v expensive (that building must be hopelessly expensive to run though). My mum went recently and said they've stopped including the food (presumably to get the cost down) but that that's reduced the social atmosphere somewhat.

I did quite a few adult education classes, but by 2008 student numbers were declining, combined with all courses needing some type of qualification and ‘syllabus’ to keep them running. This meant either course work or an exam, I think that did for a lot of the creative courses.
There are courses ‘just for fun’ in my area but as others have said it’s being run by individuals, and on ad-hoc days. Meant to add, I agree with you OP, I’d love there to be AE courses in person not online.

I'm South Coast too. Have you seen the prices at West Dean College??😱

I'm retired. DH and I go to weekly art classes at our local arts centre (one of the few places around here that does things like that) and apart from the actual learning aspect there's a lovely sense of camaraderie and we also meet up outside of class.
Age ranges are from 40s to 90s, we have people recovering from cancer, widowed people, all sorts.
It's quite pricey but in terms of enjoyment and mental health it's worth it.

The arts centre also runs free art courses for people with learning or mental difficulties and has dementia friendly film showings.

But apart from art there's very little else on offer anywhere.

Same here in my South Coast town. A few short hobby courses like photography but no A levels etc. A few very expensive full time 1 year access courses for those wanting go to uni but thats it. Hugely disappointing. Probably much better options in prison.

Simply, the financial crisis killed it off.

The evening courses of old were subsidised, weren't they?

I tried to get in to a basic maths course to improve my maths and get it up to gcse standards but failed the online test 😂

I thought about this thread earlier when I was sent an email from the RA advertising a weekend workshop introduction to weaving. I thought I'd sign up for it until I saw the price. £480 for two days!

So it's daytime and doing it as part of work?
That's different to evening classes.

No, one day a week, and she's got day release from work.

See my response above.
There's plenty of socialising groups/classes available. More than ever these days in my personal opinion.

@MaturingCheeseball with online I was referring to formal qualifications like GCSEs, btec, A-levels, Open University etc.
In a perfect world these classes would exist in person rather than online but unfortunately the country currently just can't afford it to be funded by councils and unless it's a college in a large town or city I don't think the numbers would be enough.
However I don't think learning things for fun is a waste of time. I think the complete opposite.
I googled some groups/classes/social groups available in my medium size home town (population around 55 thousand).
There's loads available at community groups, art centres, social spaces etc.
It's out there. It's available. There's actually way more available than when I was lonely and bored in my 20s (I am 50 now).
I definitely don't think hobby subjects are a waste of time. I am 100% for hobbies and community/social groups.
I just don't think it should be something funded by the government in a college.

Totally agree @MaturingCheeseball

I can see the point that a working adult with a family who needs specific training in support of their career may find it easier to do their qualification online.

But for a lot of people who maybe live alone, work from home or are retired then getting out to something class-based is really important.

@Needmorelego online, online, online…

Noooooo!!!! Reminds me of the Covid threads when some posters were trumpeting that there was no need for anything to be in person ever again - that it would be excellent if all cinemas/theatres/pubs were to close forever.

So what if, say, Exploring Plantagenet Jewellery is merely “fun”? I understand that budgetary constraints have rendered such courses obsolete - but it’s depressing if hobby subjects are deemed to be an “unnecessary waste of time”.

What a shame we don’t have paternalistic companies any more; firms are too lean and mean and employees would rather doomscroll at home than study Shakespeare and play table tennis after work (see archive material on Cadburys etc).

Those Hampshire library offerings are pretty sparse and almost all during daytime in the week.

Local colleges used to be open in the evenings for working adults to take courses and qualifications.

Are they doing it as a full time course?
I have friends who are doing specific qualifications (not in accounting but other subjects).
They are full time daytime courses aimed at adults (mix of online, in person and on placements).
This is different to doing an evening class for A-level History or whatever.

No, it isn't. An adult family member is studying it at college at the moment. I know at least two other people who have also done college courses in accounting in the last few years.

It's Association of Accounting Technicians, by the way.