To think evening class GCSE/A Level provision for adults has massively declined since 1990?

[Blakeyzbus]

The Autumn of 1990 was the first year I was looking to do a part time GCSE course as I’d left school. I lived in a city and there were these huge paper supplements with the local newspaper that had loads of A level and GCSE courses you could choose from at different venues within the city. Fast forward to 2025 and I find that GCSE / A Level night school provision is thin on the ground in the same city.

I suppose I’m thinking this because it’s approaching end of August/ beginning of September.
Any thoughts?

There used to be lots of different adult classes both daytime and evening. Due to the massive cuts in funding there are only a tiny number of courses and they are all directed at getting people back to work with the vast majority on during working hours. These course are reduced for those on benefits but full price for everyone else. Such a shame the adult courses were well attended and a fantastic way for adults of all ages to meet new people/learn new skills.

Yes I could for an additional £1200. That’s how much it costs with practicals and exams. Not a small amount on top of another degree.

The Lifelong Learning centre at my local university has just closed.

I think it’s really sad.

YANBU and I think it is still needed, and a lot more FE College funding & expansion. Schools make a massive hoo haa about doing 8+ GCSEs by 16 but then if you fail at that point you never get the chance to do them again other than Maths & English at college. Either 8+ GCSEs aren't important and drop them altogether, or give people longer to study them as not everyone is ready at 15/16 for all manner of reasons.

Non existent in my area. You can do online AL but it costs £1500 plus if you include exam fees (for which I'd have to travel quite a distance to sit).
There's nil "interest" type night classes. You can't learn French, cake decorating, etc anymore. The only courses are strictly job focused with industry recognised qualifications. They are very expensive, unless you are on benefits, mostly daytimes, and require fulltime or 1/2 time attendance.
The old fashioned type of night class were very important for older people in terms of mental health and social contact.

I live in London and I want to learn Portuguese. The only course I can find is Brazilian Portuguese at City Lit. That’s it. No other options.

I think there has been a cultural shift - for which I blame the Tories, obvs. They have destroyed the idea of just enjoying learning as a goal in itself. Now everything has to be leading to a job.

But there is value in education for its own sake. And value in creativity (do not get me started on the decline of arts education).

They don't have the funding.

I went to uni at 32 after becoming disabled and I was unable to continue in my chosen career.

The local college offered loads of courses that I got for free because I was getting DLA.

I did some Italian, Deaf awareness, basic counselling, AS sociology. All gone now.

Wasn’t the Tories, as I said in my earlier post it was around 2005/6. Labour were in power then. The Education Secretary was either Alan Johnson or Ruth Kelly.

The old fashioned type of night class were very important for older people in terms of mental health and social contact.

Retired people join U3A instead and can do various classes during the day

I've done a couple of terms of language courses online with City Lit and they were pretty good. I thought they were expensive until I properly compared prices, and discovered they are actually quite reasonable! These days you can also just get one-to-one lessons online although thats a different experience to being in a group. It's that social aspect and meeting like-minded people which is so important.

I looked into doing this mostly because my exams are from Denmark and not known here. However I gave up as no provisions in evening. With the local authority only day time.

I have considered an online platform but I am without a computer right now and it feels hard on a phone.

U3A isn't the same because it's organised by private individuals. I tried to join a group and the organiser was....unwelcoming. A group my DH would enjoy is always full, there doesn't seem to be any way of new people joining.

Also leisure courses are thin on the ground (and massively oversubscribed). I used to love a course each september.

Our local college doesn't do A levels at all (it used to and there were several one year A level courses intended for mature students but were mainly 18-19 year olds doing resits).
What happened to life long learning

I know I really miss these courses - the variety of courses used to be excellent!

Yes, it's a real shame.

I did a couple of evening classes (A level Computing at the local college & Conversational French via the local uni) in the late ninties and there were loads to choose from. The college where I did the computing had a real buzz to it in the evening due to how many classes were on - loads of GCSE/A level but also vocational qualifications you could do in the evening like plumbing courses etc. It is such a shame on so many levels to lose this.

Exactly ! I miss the ‘buzz’ of the local FE colleges too !

What exactly do you mean by leisure course?

I don’t think they were ever free unless you weee under 19. I did GCSE Maths at evening class in 1992. I had to pay for it.

It's actually hard to find proper taught GCSE or A-Level classes even online now. My DD really struggles with her mental health and hasn't been able to attend school properly. People tell me to focus on her getting better and she has plenty of time to do exams etc in the future, but actually I've looked and it's very hard to find any provision. Anything that there is online is super expensive and most of it is self-led with "access to a tutor"

I remember my Mum dojng so many evening classes when I was a child. She took maths A-level through adult education in the 90s. There were classes for everything from flower arranging to car mechanics. You had to pay for them but they weren't extortionate. In the early 2000s I did an Italian evening class just for fun. There isn't anything like that available now.

Leisure courses don't lead to n exam or a qualification, things like yoga.

Things like “A Gateau for Christmas”?

This is an actual course title from the 90s which has stuck in my mind because I giggled over it at the time.

Now I’m older and wiser, I can see the value of courses like this, and appreciate what they did for the different demographics they served.

My XH did Car Maintenance when he passed his test. Imagine a young man in his teens doing that now - engaging with the older generation, learning some skills and self-sufficiency. It would be so good for them.

These days we’re treated as economic units, not human beings, and what’s happened to night classes reflects that.

Fucking capitalism.

As other posters have said, the number and type of part time courses available with respect to adult learning have reduced significantly, and in some cases, almost disappeared. The main factor driving this trend is funding. In April, for example, a further 6% was cut from the Adult Skills Fund. Indeed, since 2010 over £1 billion has been cut with respect to opportunities for adults to re-train and build skills in this sector:

Adult skills funding cuts will undermine… | Association of Colleges

Another factor is that local authorities have immensely squeezed budgets, and funding is often available only for courses that offer skills for employability (often funded partly by the DWP), re-settlement programmes and so on.

Access to HE courses are still run, and for some adults, these may be a viable alternative to A levels if the individual wishes to study a university level course. However, you may find more of these courses online than in a local FE college.

Online learning has also impacted on the number of face to face part time offers available at colleges and other centres for education, many online providers offer short modular, skills-based courses.

There seems to be a decline in learning MFL at a higher level. In the university for which I work, there have been significant redundancies in this area:

New report shows a catastrophic decline in formal language learning - HEPI

FE colleges have, for some considerable time, been funded largely to focus on full time learning for 16-19 year olds. Many students who go to FE colleges may choose alternatives to A levels.

I know this is a bit of a hotchpotch of information, but it may help to explain why there is so little choice with respect to part time learning in a face to face context in FE.

I don’t think it’s just U3A-aged older people who need social contact: my DC is leaving home this autumn and I will be home alone every evening. The logical thought to fill some of those evenings was evening classes- there used to be masses of GCSE and also general skills, general interests etc available. But there’s a dearth now of classes available and that’s very sad. I used to love reading the supplement, going to the sign-up, going out to the classes. Online learning is no substitute at all.

I guess it's because English and Maths are the only GCSE's you tend to 'need' and who would be mad enough to do A-levels if they didn't have to?

A-levels are horrible and the only point of them (IMO) is to get into uni! I'd imagine most people now would do an access to higher education course at 19+ if they want to go to uni and find it highly preferable to A-levels!

There's obviously not the money now for the government to be providing loads of in person, free courses for people to do for fun. But there are loads of free courses online that you can find to learn different things. It's not the same but it's obviously far cheaper and can reach a much larger amount of people.