The UK Government recently announced that they are cutting funding for over 5000 further education courses due to poor attendance numbers. You could think that these courses are being cut because they are niche courses, but they include courses such as hair dressing, agriculture, horticulture, performing arts, cooking and horse care. In the modern world, we still need the people who are able to grow our crops and tend to our plants. We still need people who are knowledgeable about animals and their care.
Does this cutting of courses demonstrate the shortsightedness of the traditional educational system?
There will be those among you looking at the practical side of things. These courses cost money and there are not enough students. That is possibly correct, if only two students want to study horse care at a college, then it is not worth running that course. But if countrywide, there are a 1000 people wanting to study the course, then things start to look different.
We are talking about college education here, mainly for 16 – 19 year olds, who may not have the life experience or financial option of travelling elsewhere in the country to study, so they miss out on the course.
But should they? Colleges and traditional education providers need to recognise that the world is moving forwards and there are other options for training people. If there were, for example, 1000 people in the UK who wanted to study horse care, there is a target audience. There are other options available for teaching students who want to study? It is not a new method, it has been around for years, but it is still something that many educational organisations fail to use – distance learning. Established in 1979, ACS has successfully offering a wide range of educational courses in horse care, agriculture and horticulture by distance learning. Our past students show just how successful we have been.
There are other options for education providers who are cutting these courses to provide courses for these students. A course may not be financially viable, but finances are not the only reason why our young people need to train and learn these essential skills.
ACS offers a wide range of options to support education, offering a wide range of distance learning courses to supplement or replace face to face training.
Find out more here.