are you able to pay to do BITS of a university course?

[RhodaBull]

ds is on a gap year (or so) for one reason or another.

He would like to do some further education and is interested in a niche subject which is offered as a module at the local university. Extensive web searches have not enabled me to find out if a person can sign up to do one individual bit of a course - paying, of course. Is this allowed?

I looked at the Open University and the course he is interested in is £3,200 through them . I thought my eyes were deceiving me.

Evening courses round here are rather sparse and seem to be mainly modern languages or crafty stuff.

I think it is unlikely - but the best thing to do would be contact the subject leader of the degree programme to which this module belongs, and ask if he could audit it. Probably an outside chance, but worth asking if he's really keen.

some unis have sign up for single modules, but only a limited number of them - not any and everything. In London, I know Birkbeck does.

Birkbeck is I supposed designed for flexibility. This would be at an ordinary campus university. I will get in touch, but I was wondering if I would be asking something utterly idiotic.

yes, some unis allow this. They are typically aimed more at the post-grad market, sold as continuing professional development. Fairly expensive. Eg., doctors who want to beef up their stats knowledge or geographers that need a special course in epidemiology, etc.

London School of Hyg & Trop. Med does quite a few distance learning modules. Also, look up MOOCs which are offered all over the place.

Oh yes, MOOCS would be a good idea.

Get DS to find out from the department web pages who the head of programme/school is, and say he realises they may be on leave atm, but wondered whether they had any options for students to take one module as he's v interested.... they can only say no!

I shall get him to have a look at MOOCS. And email the university. As you say, they can only roar with laughter or give a few snorts of derision...