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?

@rasputinsghost Yes. Funding is directed to where it’s most needed. For people to get jobs. As I said earlier, the WEA was a big supplier of non academic courses. Local authorities did some and when they controlled the FE colleges there was quite a choice. Evening learning for people at work seems to have died a death because apprentice learning is done during the day. Going out in the evening has certainly changed!

Years ago there used to be a wide range of evening classes you could sign up for for relatively modest fees. Cooking, crafts, foreign languages. I remember doing a Self Defence for Women course in the 1980s and I did Conversational French for a couple of years in the mid 1990s.

Back in about 1970 I remember my DM doing Winemaking, while my elder sister had a class at the same time learning to type.

I used to look forward to getting the syllabus round about this time of year to see what courses would be starting in September.

Ah thank you - thought so

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.

@BlueEyedBogWitch A single, female friend of mine signed up for a Car Maintenance class because she thought it would be a good way of meeting men. Unfortunately the majority of the other people on the course were there for a similar reason! Maybe this had been offered as a tip in a women's magazine at the time, or something.

Shame she didn’t meet my XH, she could have saved us both a lot of hassle 😂

I have always crocheted and I remember once, decades ago, I decided I would like a go at Tunisian crochet. I went in to a craft shop in town and asked if they had any Tunisian crochet hooks. The man serving looked genuinely startled and said "But it's not September! People only want things like that in September when the evening classes start"

I have one, I had to track one down on ebay. I don't think I've come across anyone else who even knows what it is.

You can buy them on Amazon. I’ve got a set of them. Not that expensive. Have yet to use them 🙈

I did car maintenance when I first bought a car in the late '90s. There was one teenage boy, everyone else was a woman.

Our county-level adult ed provider, Aspire Sussex, went bust a couple of years ago and nothing has replaced it.

This September, to my utter disbelief, our local sixth-form college are offering only half-a-dozen "recreational" evening classes - not even GCSE English and maths. In previous years, they also offered Access to Health Care Professions (nothing else, just HCP) and GCSEs in biology and psychology.

I e-mailed to ask whether they'd be adding the more academic evening classes info to their webpage later this month, and they replied that they've stopped offering them altogether and now direct prospective students to the FE college in the neighbouring large town (seven miles away)...which only offers GCSE English and maths and the Access to Health Care Professions course as evening classes.

The nearest college that offers adult evening classes in GCSE biology, chemistry and physics in addition to English and maths, and which also runs six different Access courses including Access to Humanities, is 20 miles away. And there are no trains back after about 10.30pm.

Heaven help any late-blossoming young adult (like my 28-year-old ASD DS) who doesn't have a "scientific" bone in his body but is now considering how to get into university to study English Lit and/or creative writing.

I've pondered it over the last couple of years. Sitting another couple of GCSEs, or even A-Levels purely in things that interest me. But they seem hard to come by, and online seems to be the only real option.

I remember back in the late 90s, my housewife mum doing evening A-Levels in Maths and then in Further Maths, just for fun, at our local college. She also did evening courses in Russian and Italian for quite a few years.

This is similar to the situation I was in when I wanted to apply to university. I sat A Levels as an external candidate, ie no tuition. It depends on the capability of the individual, though. And it's probably more expensive than when I did it.

Getting into university as a mature student is far too expensive and time-consuming, given how many jobs require a degree. A literate adult should be able to start university within months rather than years.

I think I read somewhere you can do a couple of OU modules, then use these to get into another uni. I'd already sat my A Levels by then, so I didn't look into it.

This thread confirms my belief that the "you can always retake all of your GCSEs" posters might be incorrect. I know you can redo maths and english in FE colleges, but it looks like young people would struggle to retake another subject.

I sat chemistry O level again many years ago when they used to offer resits in January (and passed 😅)

A Level English Literature has four set books. Top set pupils could have done that at secondary school. An adult with good literacy skills isn't going to need a huge amount of work to do that. It's ridiculous I would have been expected to spend thousands on an Access Course.

@RampantIvy I agree. You used to be able to retake all types of GCSE/A Level as an adult but since the FE budget cuts almost all of these courses have been removed, aside from functional/GCSE level Maths and English.

If you have a FE or uni nearby you maybe able to take an access course.

There is a reason so many parents are not letting their children choose their GCSEs and making them take a core set (if they have the capability). Maths, English, Triple science, a language, a humanities subject and a creative/technical/physical subject. It is so much easier to get the paper qualifications when you are younger, not impossible as an adult but a lot more depends on your location and financial situation.

It's not only the parents making pupils take core subjects. It's the schools.

It's not only the parents making pupils take core subjects. It's the schools.

Yeah, it's odd. After I had my second kid (early 1990s) I did the ILEX paralegal course at night school. It cost £5 - per year over 2 years. Now it costs £13,000. That qualification earned me good money for a few years. I remember when my third went to nursery (so late 1990s) I did a local history course at night school up at the uni. That was a £10 for a whole year.

Fast forward to today, that third kid is doing a Spanish classes at college in the evenings and it's £350! 25% of her month's wages.

Local councils can't afford it but are spending huge amounts on social care - looking after the same people who got the cheap night school classes. It's great innit.