Section:GDN BE PaGe:38 Edition Date:160524 Edition:01 Zone:
38
Sent at 23/5/2016 16:46
The Guardian | Tuesday 24 May 2016
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education
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Special report
‘Online courses sparked my desire to learn’ If you’re looking to give your career a boost, a short course could be the answer
It’s also possible to study for a recognised professional qualification via a short online course. Business analytics executive Thomas Brinsley studied for his AAT accountancy level 2 and 3 online via the Home Learning College (HLC). He says that choosing shorter courses rather than a degree gave him more flexibility. “I had the option to study an honours degree through distance learning, but I found that I would eventually need to
Lucy Jolin
We’re trying to present students with a route from informal learning to formal learning
GETTY
When Amy Goodman was asked by her employer to complete a short course via the Open University (OU), it proved to be her pathway to a degree and the chance of a whole new career. “The hospital funded the course – improving dementia care – and gave me a day off every few weeks to work on it, as my shifts are a bit crazy,” says Goodman, a healthcare assistant in a respiratory ward at Milton Keynes hospital. “But as it’s all online, I could do it at whatever time suited me. It definitely sparked my desire to learn more. I hadn’t realised that the Open University also runs nursing programmes before I started my short course. I’m now halfway through my nursing degree at the OU, which is also being funded by my hospital.” There’s a dizzying range of short courses available to take online, and a huge demand for them. More than 3.5 million people have joined FutureLearn, the OU’s free short courses platform, which offers hundreds of short courses in partnership with 86 organisations from around the world, from big data: statistics and machine learning with the Queensland University of Technology to the University of Warwick’s Shakespeare and his world. Then there’s paid-for short courses. Again, there’s a huge variety out there: you can learn how to build a jewellery business with an online short course from Central Saint Martins, or discover the city, society and infrastructure of ancient Rome with the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education.
More than 3.5 million people have joined short courses platform FutureLearn
study towards a recognised accountancy qualification,” he says. “By studying through distance learning, it gave me the option to tailor my education to my desired career path. “I’m working in finance at the moment, and my distance learning has enabled me to gain both a practical and theoretic knowledge of the subject. My company highly respects and supports my studying towards a recognised qualification.” So who are short online courses suitable for? Anyone, says Chris Simpson, managing director of accounting and finance at Floream, which owns the Home Learning College. “Our students are from a real
mix of backgrounds and have different reasons for wanting a professional qualification on their CV,” he says. “We have students who want to take this path instead of spending thousands at university. We have stay-at-home mums who are preparing to return to work and experienced managers who would like to add qualifications to their CVs. And there are those who would like to change careers completely.” And they’re a great way into a subject, says Chris Kubiak, senior lecturer in health and social care at the OU. “We’re trying to present students with a route from informal learning to formal learning, taking on increasing amounts of commitment. So they might start by dipping their toe in the water with a little bit of casual study, to online short courses which they pay for, then going on to a degree, which is much more intensive. “But people come to us with many different trajectories. Some don’t want to do a full degree. Some just want to do a module, and some might just want to know about a certain subject – for example, end-of-life care, or dementia. Or maybe they’re biding their time between pieces of study and they just want to keep the momentum going.” For Goodman, the short course has represented a path back into education. “I left school at 17 after a year of sixth form. I wouldn’t have enjoyed sitting in a lecture hall at a normal university,” she says. “I like to look at things in my own time and with the OU you have voice recordings, books, videos and other learning materials, so you can think about your own perspective. “The short course has made my degree a lot easier as well, as I know the OU way of teaching and way of learning. Plus, I had to learn time management. Nobody is going to tell you to do it. You have to manage yourself, sit there and do the work. I’ve really enjoyed it.”