Free courses

Gaining new relevant qualifications for the job that you want, or updating skills you already have, eg IT skills is one of the best ways for the older person to be able to show an employer that they are up to date with the modern work force, and can learn new skills. However, in recent years it has become increasingly difficult to find free courses, and to be eligible for them. College's which used to offer free studying to those on benefits or pensioners have now moved the criteria, and it can be that there now is a fee, which might be low but people on benefits just cannot afford it, or it can be that if you already have a level 2 standard qualification then you cannot get free training for many courses, even if it is a subject that you would benefit from having a qualification in.

EG, I have O level English, and an NNEB Nursery Nursing qualification but I do not have the basic skill core subject of O level Maths, and have frequently found that colleges offering an O level standard equivalent maths course are unable to offer me a free place, as  I have the equivalent of level 2 qualifications, even if it is in a career subject that I can no longer work in.

However, there are opportunities for free courses on line....The open University for this academic year 2012 has been forced by the government to completely change its free structure.bringing it into line with  general university fees . This was a big blow to the open university and its students because it showed a complete disrespect by this government for the ethos and history of the OU, established under Labour party administration for the very purpose of enabling people to get a degree who otherwise  would not, or for various reasons had previously been unable to study at university level...such as  myself....

Previously to this change, it could almost be assumed that if you were unemployed , then your studying was free..this year's fee structure is far too complex for me to attempt to explain here, and there are individual factors affecting what you will pay, with a combination of routes to pay for your studies....what does stand out is that for the first time this year, OU students are eligible for student loans, which  would become repayable on the student earning £21,000 per year. However, I do not know how this would affect someone in my position , who would love to have a degree, but for whom the government could easily refuse a student loan  on the grounds that a degree is hardly essential to a woman of fifty three who is being told by the DWP to get a job in spite of having arthritis, partial sight and a heart condition amongst the most notable of her health conditions , or she will be put on the work programme (which I am just about to begin attending ) and have to work in a £1 shop for nothing..I have a feeling that you don't any longer get sent to Tesco's to stack shelves since Tesco's opted out of the scheme at risk of some very bad publicity from benefit claimants .....since I am basically being told that I am to do any job and if that be cleaning etc  and the physical effort kills me, then so be it ,  I won't be the first person killed as a result of this governments welfare sanctions, but I am to get a job or lose my benefits... then to be honest even I have to admit I hardly could be said to need a degree.....

I never thought I would see again the circumstances that surrounded my educational options in the seventies, when my dreams of university were literally beaten out of me physically by my mother ,my crime being to jump out of my class..now at the time I saw this as being child abuse but to be honest in hindsight, which I mentioned in yesterdays posting , I wouldn't say it is a wonderful thing but it does give understanding ..I do wonder now that I am older and wiser and have more understanding of the financial and class based limitations people face ...did perhaps my mother know exactly what my options were in a way that I didn't ? I'm never one to knock ambition..to the contrary  I could have got a degree in that , but to be honest, it often is not our own personal aims and ambitions that shape our options, but our  financial circumstances , and the government....as my mother discovered in 1937, when she was the first in her family to pass the eleven plus , but there was no grammar school place for her , as her mother could not afford the uniform. I consider this to have been a  very cruel system as she was set up to fail and as a family, we still suffer from her experience today...but I can see this sort of situation becoming increasingly common in the years ahead...

If you do wish to study at University level, it is worth going to the website of the Open university and reading the fees information, where there are also financial assessment facilities, where you get an idea of what help and options might be available....I will be posting other possible options for free on line courses...

On the subject of my O  level Maths..or rather the lack of it !! and as O levels and their reintroduction is big in the news just now....knowing that maths was not my first love or a subject I found easy, I sat the subject at CSE level..the problem being that I twice failed to get the grade 1, which was considered to at least be the equivalent of an O level pass..albeit not  a top grade...the difficulty was that it was not easy in  any CSE subject to get a grade 1, even in subjects in which I was good..eg Social Studies, where again I got a grade 2... I was encouraged by my teachers to sit  O level, maths  which they considered I had a greater chance of passing, but I refused, not having the confidence....nor a mastery of Trigonometry !!

Having experienced a two tier system of qualifications, I would vote every time, if given the chance to retain the GCSE system....providing that is, the issue is addressed of students being given the impression that it is impossible to fail, and that low grades were no longer considered to be a pass.

Valerie Hedges