to be shocked at the demise of adult education?

[Goldfsh]

Now I have an empty nest, I was hoping to start some adult education classes in academic topics that interest me, e.g. history or literature.

Having contacted the two local colleges who used to drop brochures for adult classes through the door, I've learnt that they don't exist any more!

There are some online classes, or courses to get back into work, and some painting type classes - or U3A if you are semi-retired (I am far from that unfortunately!). But no general education classes.

I found this very depressing. I really wanted to learn something new and connect with local people too. AIBU to be shocked that these sorts of classes are a thing of the past?

Also the remaining classes are so expensive! £300 per term for a language at the local college. And that’s just levels (ie beginners, intermediate and so on) not GCSE or A Level.

I’m in the same situation, children have grown up and become independent. I fancied doing some sort sewing or dressmaking, nothing around, there are some one day “make a teddy” activities. Also I did language A levels so I looked for language courses, maybe a conversational class, but again very little available. I did find an online beginner’s French class but as rusty as I am, it’s not beginner’s level that I need and £20 for an hour online is too much, especially after a day of online meetings, there is the same face to face class in the middle of day in the week.
I remember my mum doing a typing evening class when I was young, in the same building as I did Brownies

I sympathise. I remember all sorts of interesting classes in the 90s, science fiction written by women, philosophy of time, woodworking. I live in London so still have city lit, but so many places have stopped. Birkbeck is not what it was. Billigsgate Institute never recovered from covid, all the wee local colleges are purely vocational.

It is a huge loss.

Aah, I'd like to keep studying French. Thanks for the reminder. Has anyone tried this lot? https://www.afdevon.org/learn-french/french-for-adults/

They apparently have proper F2F classes in the SW, which might suit the OP.

I don't think that's particularly true. Back in the early 2000s I was working towards an adult ed City &Guilds qualification in Creative Textiles with the aim of eventually teaching the subject. Teaching would have been a career change for me. The classes were suddenly cut in the middle of a term and I never got to finish the last couple of units that would have given me the qualification and new career I wanted.

My mum who had left school at 15 went to evening classes as an adult and did 4 O'levels - the old GCSE qualification. It got her the job in the Civil Service that she wanted.

My DH was looking for Spanish classes - he's pretty fluent but wanted more in-person chatting stuff with different dialects. There's NOTHING.

Education is devalued in the UK. See all the talk of going to university being a waste of money, who needs maths anyway? everything should lead to a job/a better job. The joy of learning has gone.

Thank you for the OU link @Greybeardy , I’m going to do a couple of their intermediate French courses!

I do already go to a face to face class as it happens, run by a lecturer who worked for the Uni for many years and took redundancy after they cut back massively on MFL courses; she’s now set up on her own and has a full class of adult learners.

Someone might have already said this but check your museum, art gallery, library, local stately home etc they might run something specialist, but I know it’s not the same. My mum talks fondly of the cooking classes she used to do with her mum and I’ve not been able to find anything like that.

Perhaps not enough people would go today.
I've attended a few things lately in the daytime and not many turned up.

Agreee. My local college used to run lots of evening classes but not any more. I’d love to do a cookery class

We have an excellent Adult Education Centre. So far, I've done Creative Writing and Calligraphy and I'm currently doing a Book Club course. I work 2 days a week due to ill health and it's lovely to have something just for me. I love that I can continue to learn too.

Know your place you uneducated serf 😁

Local U3As are mainly run by people who've either been in education or bureaucratic jobs and they're in their element.
And yes I AM generalizing but that's our and other friends experiences.
Lots of very entitled elderly well off widows too!

Quite honestly even though I'm 70 and DH is 65 we found it very 'old' and a bit worthy.
But then we'd worked in universities for 30 years and were used to the buzz of younger people.

My daytime art classes are packed!

Maybe it's my area. It is a county people typically retire to, so.....

Not really. These classes are no longer subsidised. There is a demand for evening classes but they can be quite expensive now.

I'm in the same boat. WFH means I'd love to get out in the evening and I'm especially free with the youngest now at University.

OP, I fully agree. I know loads of people who did various Adult education courses in the 80s and 90s. It's how I did my own O levels and A levels after leaving a crap comp with nothing. Then I did a few courses purely for interest. My DH did various courses too, including some O and A levels as he had a crap comp education too. We both also did professional exams. DH also did computing, both basic and then worked up to advanced and programming/networks etc. I even ended up teaching Accounting Technician courses to adults for a few years at our local college. Our respective parents also did various "fun" courses like massage, flower arranging, etc.

All that's gone. Two of our local colleges closed down and the one remaining one only offers courses for 16-18 year olds.

It's all very depressing how we had a World leading adult education system and flushed it all down the toilet with Blair's obsession with getting 50% of young to University which sucked all the funding forcing local colleges to close down.

it is phenomenally expensive now and have to say the teaching is quite variable - it was much much better when there were face-to-face tutorials (fair to say it's taking an awfully long time to finish my degree because I remember when there were real life teaching sessions but now it all seems to be online! Art history has been a blast though).

Well that's half the problem - "daytime". Working people or those with children would often find it impossible to take random half days/full days off. It's why evening classes were so popular. People could do them after work or when there was someone else (partner) to look after the children.

Surely that doesn't apply in the evenings though? All the local secondaries round here are used as community hubs in the evenings, hiring out loads of their spaces

Where I live there are classes in lots of practical things but they aren’t run by the council but by individual people. Unfortunately they tend to be expensive, so I am unable to justify the cost on myself.

I worked for a continuing education provider for many years. The problem is funding. They used to offer many lovely, low cost weekend etc courses that were only affordable because they were subsidised. When the funding dried up, so did the courses unfortunately. Some providers were able to run courses that didn’t make a profit or even made a loss, for some time, because they made money in other areas which propped up the loss making activities. But obviously that couldn’t go on for long.

YANBU
My local college used to offer loads of classes for adults. Lots of GCSEs and A-levels to choose from too. I had a friend who did A-level Psychology for fun.

Now, no A-levels, and the only GCSEs you can do are English and Maths.

Even Access courses are limited now. Years ago, there were several different ones you could do. You could do Access to IT, Access to Science... basically you could use them to do pretty much any uni course after. Now, all on offer is Access to Nursing. And the price of that has shot up. When I did it, I paid £250. Now it is a couple of grand.