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?

I agree to an extent but as I said in a previous post, we have stopped funding adult education but are now funding massive programmes to reduce isolation and loneliness, spending more on GP appointments that GPs say are due to loneliness, have decimated volunteer numbers etc. I would say that all of these things are due to a lack of community cohesion that things like adult education classes really contribute towards.

We used to get similar catalogues from 3 local places - doing everything from cooking to sewing to yoga to photography to local history to foreign languages to various instruments to how to service a diesel engine….a very wide variety of subjects.

Now there is literally nothing unless you want to enroll in an actual level 5 or 6 or beyond course in the Universities and Colleges in the city. Which are all for a full academic year and tend to need at least 2 nights per week for 3 hours , and have exams at the end. But the older courses were 10 weeks long and most were about fun practical learning and did not have exams - and were 1 night a week for just a couple of hours. Nearby.

I used to do some and always found them interesting - some because of the subject or teacher, and some just the conversations the group would get into.

Thank you for this post - very interesting to hear your experience from the inside.

I have found a few things online but those which are not 'craft-y' tend to be one-off lectures and similar. I will attend some of them but it's lacking that small-group continuity that I'd like.

There are a lot of women-socialising groups but they tend to be large groups and mainly in pubs from what I can see! Not really interested in that.

@Needmorelego my late father taught me car maintenance when I passed my test over 40 years ago. I could do oil, water, change wipers, change an alternator, top up and change a battery, clean and change points and a carburettor. I even once put in a new clutch! I don’t know what is required regarding car maintenance for the current driving test. I should imagine it’s very limited as modern cars are very complicated and have a lot of components that require computer analysis in a garage. I wouldn’t know where to start. Even changing a tyre nowadays is different as most modern tyres are larger and the wheel nuts often need a power tool to remove them, thats if you even have a spare wheel many modern cars don’t.

There's a lot more social groups available now though than there was when I was in my (lonely) 20s - which was the late 90s/early 00s.
College courses were around (I did start one but it wasn't very good so stopped going) but there wasn't the more casual meetup style groups around when I was younger and desperately wanted to meet people.
Life has changed.

Yes, 20 years ago I got my Spanish AS and A2 at Hull College and East Riding College respectively. It’s all disappeared. It’s such a shame.

From the late 19th century and perhaps peaking in the 1920s, there was a huge culture of self improvement that wasn’t just restricted to the middle classes. There were so many classes and societies available.

@Goldfsh i just googled my nearest library.
The library part (ie the books and computer access) are funded by the borough but everything else is charity funded.
This is a tiny library but there are loads of adult activities available - daytime, evening, weekends.
Some free. Some paid for.
If your argument is to stop isolation and loneliness then there are groups out there.
In fact my mum and mother in law (both old and retired) have busier social lives than me with their coffee mornings, bingo, walking groups, craft clubs etc.
(screenshot of activities at the library incoming....)

Haven't read the whole thread yet, but the WEA used to provide what pp wanted - lectures and discussion and opportunities to meet new people. But successive governments, and the wea itself, have turned it into something neither tutors nor students wanted. Course outlines, learning outcomes, session plans and evaluations, end of term reports and evaluations filled in by students and tutors, all now done online. And a VLE which tutors are supposed to spend time uploading things to, but none of the students ever look at.

Students signed up to spend a couple of hours a week learning something, not to spend their own time online filling in forms and evaluations.

More and more requirements loaded on to tutors (who are contracted for each separate class they teach), but no increase in pay.

All these extra requirements mean tutors have less time to keep up with their own subjects.

And since lockdown, many classes are now online, rather than face to face. There few if any face to face WEA classes in my own county this year. Online classes of course are beneficial for people who can't physically attend classses, but many tutors and students highly value the face to face contact.

Many tutors and students have now abandoned the WEA and set up independently, finding a room to hire. But they tend to recruit by word of mouth, rather than advertising, so are not easy to find.

If you are interested in natural history the Field Studies Council has an excellent range of courses many online but some at venues. I have done a few of the online ones that generally last 3-4 weeks and have a weekly tutorial as well as the learning material and practical tasks to do eg drawing or photographing a plant from a particular class, finding and describing a fungus, finding and describing 3 species of lichen on twigs. The tutors are knowledgeable

As I mentioned last time this topic came up on AIBU, our county-level adult ed provider, Aspire Sussex, went bust a couple of years ago and nothing has replaced it.

Last September, to my utter disbelief, our local sixth-form college were 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 that month, and they replied that they'd stopped offering them altogether and now signpost 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 own 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 must admit I’m glad I was unaware of the difficulty of doing GCSEs as an adult nowadays when DS was doing his; I was fairly laid back as I had the assumption that if he failed it wasn’t the end of the world as he could do them later. I can see now why so many mums seem so controlling over homework etc.

It really isn't, that's what garages are for, and cars don't need the everyday maintenance they needed 20 or more years ago. Check the oil, water and tyres and away you go.

On the subject of the thread, where I live the local libraries run some courses and there are still some adult courses at the local tech but not many.

I did GCSE Italian at night school about 25 years ago but I wouldn't be able to do it now.

For example: https://www.hants.gov.uk/librariesandarchives/library/services/learning-in-libraries

very limited though

That looks brilliant - if you live in Edinburgh! Although I may take a look at some of the free online ones. A good idea to see if a more local uni does this though - thanks.

It's such a shame, isn't it? In the 1990s, I used to learn French in an adult class held at the local secondary school, then later on I attended a French conversation class at the local community centre.
Also in the 1990s, I studied for a psychology A-level at an adult class at the local 6th-form college.

Back then, there were numerous other learning opportunities for adults, but many were at a time when I couldn't attend.

Now that I'm retired, it would be lovely to be able to go to some of those classes - but none of them exist any more sadly. The local secondary school used to have loads of aerobics/keep fit/yoga etc classes in the evenings too, but now there are none. 😢

If they don't pass them at 16 they have 3 more years available at 6th Form/College to re take them.
In theory it should be rare for someone to get to 19 and not have the basic GCSEs.
(SEN and special circumstances obviously do mean that some 19 year old don't 🙁)

In the middle -2000s did an Italian class when I moved to an entirely new area. As someone else said, this had benefits far beyond learning Italian. It gave me conversation every week at a time I was quite lonely... And through it I made a friend who then introduced me to more people my age in the area.

I think without that I might have had a breakdown from the loneliness so it saved the NHS a lot of money.

I get times are tight though. I wonder if it's a space charity or philanthropy could step into?

So the person upthread that wanted to learn car maintenance seems a bit random unless she actually wants to get an apprenticeship followed by a job as a mechanic (you can be an apprentice at any age).

Out of interest, what kind of topics would people like to learn about?

And what about almost a peer lead learning group a bit like a book group but people teach different topics to each other taking it in turns week? I have quite a few things I know a lot about, and occasionally teach people about (eg in workplaces) but I don't think I could fill a full course with them

The problem with this is that a lot of people know a lot about things, but not very many have the ability to 'teach' what they know. That's why I took an adult teaching qualification - so I could learn the mechanics of teaching, as opposed to standing up in front of people and 'telling them things'.

While the peer led learning group is an option and sounds like a good idea, I think the problem is that without structure and the firm hand a clear teacher or lecturer provides, these things often degenerate into a general chat/ meet-up, as many book groups do, so those who are actually keen to learn or study are disappointed. When people aren’t paying even a small contribution and there is no assessment they are more likely to turn up late and erratically which again can lead to the sessions feeling slow and tedious.

The FE college Spanish night classes I attended were not free but they were very affordable and we did sign some kind of student code of conduct.

My guess is that courses that people would be interested in include modern languages, politics, psychology, history, creative writing, skills like woodworking/ sewing/ pottery/ photography, code writing and computer skills.

I started looking last year. I remember my mum doing several courses back in the late 90s - conversational French, dressmaking and tailoring, typing etc. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

AAT.

I assume that's some kind of accounting thing?
I expect that's done online these days.