Adult Education – the road to your success

If you fancy learning something new, want to improve your skills, or gain a new qualification for work, then adult education may be the right choice for you. Itchen’s Adult Education department has a wide range of courses for all abilities. We also provides Skills for Life opportunities, the national strategy for improving adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL; and Train to Gain opportunities which are aimed at helping businesses.

Some courses are free and for those where fees are applicable, financial help available may be available to eligible learners via an Adult Learners’ Grant or bursaries.

We have a wide range of adult learners, including those undertaking vocational courses to develop a new hobby, such as photography or airbrushing photographs with Photoshop; to those who are actively working in their community but would like a nationally-recognised qualification; to those who run their own business or are in management positions and would like the qualifications to reflect this.

Last year over one and a half thousand adult learners successfully gained qualifications, skills and experience with Itchen College.

Twenty-year old Annie Simmons (pictured) successfully completed the Access to Higher Education course. Says Annie, “I left school at sixteen and floated from job to job. At nineteen I realised I was miserable doing this and decided to return to education to better myself. I enrolled on the Access course at Itchen as it was a free course that would enable me to go to university. The course was only one year and, at times I found it very overwhelming, but I really enjoyed it. I made new friends and it really boosted my self-esteem.

I completed the course and was amazed at how achieving something made me feel so happy and worthwhile. I am now at Solent University studying Criminology.”

If you are considering adult education or would like to talk to someone about finding the right course for you then contact the Adult Education Team on 023 8044 6156.

May 2009