Please forgive us the slightly controversial heading, but we hope it made you take notice! You might be aware that today sees the end of Adult Learners’ Week, and in fact it’s the 20th anniversary of this seven-day long celebration of people and their achievements in education, training and development.
You probably won’t be surprised to read that what Adult Learners’ Week stands for is something we’re quite passionate about - and we’re particularly delighted that it has continued to run, very successfully, for two decades. Hearing that it has been running for 20 years got us thinking, though. How different were things 20 years ago? Well, actually, in terms of the economy, not very different at all really. And if nothing else that reassured us that peaks and troughs are just a fact of life and that things will improve again. But in terms of the general attitude towards ‘adult learners’, we think things are very different today. For those of you with experience in education and training, you might remember that 20 years’ ago, the term ‘adult learning’ often conjured up images of flower arranging or pottery classes – not that there’s anything wrong with either, of course!
Today the concepts of lifelong learning, personal development and career changes are, thankfully, accepted as the norm and we know that a ‘job for life’ often just isn’t realistic – but hopefully in a good way.
In a world where ’60 is the new 40’ – or even younger in many cases – we’d like to think that our attitudes towards career changes, retraining and new directions in working lives are much more open. Would you agree? We’d love to know.
One thing that Adult Learners’ Week does continue to do, very well, is promote the success stories of those who’ve made a brave decision to transform their lives through training, and you can read all about this year’s award winners here.
There are some great stories that are well worth a read, and if you feel inspired and wonder where your first step towards a change might land then why not have a look at the stories from some of the people – of all ages - who’ve trained with us.
Happy learning – whatever your age!