Colleges say 'swathe of cuts' threatens adult education

But - if the money just isn't there? Online courses?

anno and grannya make the same important point. And jingl, may be true for many but not for all. Just dreadfully shortsighted to cut the sector with most and most varied students, doing the widest variety of courses, at all levels and most economically.

But, to be fair, today's children are mostly offered a good education, along with good pastoral and career advice, at school.

Maybe some adults who did not take full advantage of education in their youth, could be welcomed back into the classroom along with the sixth formers. They could then get the necessary preliminary qualifications to enable them to go onto the online courses. (With telephone back-up)

Having had no choice but to leave school at the age of fifteen the Access course at my local college was my only option of getting back into education some years later. Without it I can't see how I would have had the opportunity to go on to university. I feel sad that for those people like me, whose educational opportunities when young are blighted by their home situations, there will be fewer options for continued learning.

Where does that idea come from Lilygran?

That is awful.

And parents who currently home educate, and say that learning can be done at any age, may find it all particularly difficut.

The last part of my career in FE was teaching Access students. These were able people who, for one reason or another, had missed out at school. They had enormous enthusiasm for education and were, for the most part, very well read - a pleasure to teach. On my last day at college, one of our former students arrived to tell us that he had just gained a first class degree in psychology - this, in spite of being dyslexic. Even if this had been our only successful student it would have been a perfect argument for retaining Access courses, but there were many others.If this lifeline is withdrawn from the over-21s, there will be a terrible waste of talent, ability and enthusiasm. A dreadful false economy.

Oh that's not true Lillygran. There is still wide ranging education available at secondary schools.

But, aren't we talking about courses for the over 21s? The funding will still be there for further education.

Seems reasonable to me. As Jane says, there are now courses available on the internet. The cuts have to be somewhere. There is no money tree.

And recent governments have all decided that for poor people, 'education' actually means vocational training, English language, literacy and numeracy and a bit of IT.

Jane colleges are the almost totally ignored success story of education. Most policy-makers have never had any direct experience of colleges. They and their children go to school, then university. Colleges, as someone said, are the poor cousin where poor people go.

Might this mean that Universities could step in and increase their range of more practical courses? Distance learning? Different ways of acquiring the education that people need beyond going to a set location? I'm thinking out loud here. Is this a response to greater use of internet style courses? I certainly noticed a major push towards online learning in my last few years in the NHS.
The colleges have a lot to lose but maybe they haven't moved with the times? There's no way there wont be education available for adults after 19 it just could be delivered in different ways. I'm not for or against either view. I've accessed a huge variety of adult education over the years up to and beyond post graduate level and have experienced a wide variety of delivery methods. I have to say that access to the internet has massively increased my options.