Adult Learning: Doing it by degrees

This is Adult Learners' week and Eileen Kelly, of the Educational Guidance Service for Adults, says there's no age limit to learning, while two graduates tell their success stories

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

This particular youth worker, Dr Dorothy Eagleson, had all the advantages of a good education herself, but she had a passion for helping those from working-class backgrounds to improve their opportunities and horizons through adult learning.

She could see that a dedicated advice and support service was needed to help people access the many educational opportunities which already existed for adults.

In 1967, she helped to set up an adult learning advice service which was the first service of its kind in Europe.

That pioneering initiative has evolved into EGSA — the Educational Guidance Service for Adults — which currently has nine regional offices across Northern Ireland, dealing with some 10,000 individuals each year.

Many of our clients are unemployed and want help with getting their foot on the employment ladder.

Others have a job but want to further their careers, or even switch careers completely.

We know that, every year, hundreds of people find employment thanks, in part, to the help we have been able to give them in finding the right course or qualification for them.

Hundreds more gain promotion or are able to progress their careers. But you don't have to be in need of a job or a promotion to benefit from adult learning.

Lifelong learning can broaden your horizons and boost your self-esteem at any stage of your life. There's never been a wider and richer variety of courses to choose from in Northern Ireland — we can help you find your way to subjects as diverse and esoteric as circus skills, uillean pipes or windsurfing.

Or you may prefer a practical subject, such as money management or gardening.

If you are interested in personal or career development, colleges and other organisations offer everything from effective and enjoyable courses in basic literacy and numeracy to postgraduate programmes in a huge range of vocational and academic subjects.

We know that, sadly, many people are put off education through bad experiences or failure at school — but adult learning is not like school.

Lifelong learning can be tailored to suit your interests and your needs. It may, at times, be hard work but you will have plenty of fun along the way.

So why not make Adult Learners' Week the week you decide to take a new direction in your life?

Check out our website or give us a call — you won't regret it.

Eileen Kelly is the Director of EGSA. You can contact EGSA on 0845 602 6632 or via its website at: www.connect2learn.org.uk

'I've had an exciting and fulfiling career'

Anne Tannahill was managing director of Blackstaff Press from 1980 until her retirement in 2003. She was instrumental in building up the company into Northern Ireland's leading publisher, overseeing the publication of some 600 titles during her time there. She says:

I was the eldest of four children and we lived in a flat above a pub in North Queen Street in north Belfast. My father was a painter and decorator and, when employment was scarce here, he had to work across the water for long periods. So money was always tight and it was hard on my mother.

I was a bit of a swot at school and, in 1953, passed the recently introduced Qualifying Examination, entitling me to a place in a grammar school, something which had been almost impossible for working-class children until then.

I went to Belfast High School and did well there, but left when I was 16 as my parents couldn't afford to keep me on.

I became a clerk in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, a position I lost when I got married four years later, as there was at that time a marriage bar against women.

I found another clerical job and worked there for three years until the birth of our son, Ian.

But I had never lost the love of studying and eventually I enrolled in an A-level class. I felt I'd like to progress to some sort of third-level education, but had no idea how to go about it and anyway I seriously doubted whether I was capable of it. It's hard to describe how much of a closed shop Queen's University seemed to people like me in those days.

My tutor suggested I seek help from EGSA, a pioneering organisation which had just started up. That was when I first met its founder, the remarkable Dorothy Eagleson. She was a tornado — forthright and formidable, but also warm and understanding.

Her faith in me gave me the confidence to apply to Queen's and I was accepted, going on to take a BA (Hons) and an MA, both in English Literature.

Those degrees helped me land a job with Blackstaff Press in 1976 as a trainee editor and, when the company changed hands in 1980, I became managing director. I've had an exciting and fulfiling career and have no doubt that meeting with Dorothy was a crucial turning point in my life."

'There was no prouder person than me when I graduated'

John McMullan is chief executive of Bryson Charitable Group, one of Northern Ireland's largest charities which employs over 500 people and has won numerous awards. He says:

I had a typical 1950s working-class childhood. I was born and brought up in the claustrophobic but close-knit Lower Falls district in one of the red-brick terraces built for local mill workers.

I failed my 11-plus and went to St Peter's Secondary Modern in Ballymurphy. After I'd sat my O-levels, the school building was requisitioned for military use. Those who stayed on in the sixth form became itinerant students, moving from one vacant building to another as our teachers struggled to carry on as normal.

This nomadic existence provided some great opportunities for the sixth formers to get 'lost in transit', but it was hardly conducive to study. Perhaps as a consequence, I got just one A-level.

I then embarked on a teacher training course but my studies came to an abrupt end when my father passed away, after becoming ill with cancer. With four younger siblings requiring financial support, both my mother and I had to find employment as quickly as possible. So I gave up my hopes of a career in teaching and took a factory job making crystal glass. Subsequently, I did apply unsuccessfully for more challenging posts — but it was clear I needed to improve my qualifications if I wanted to develop a stimulating career.

Finally, I was offered a traineeship with Bryson Charitable Group's predecessor, the Belfast Voluntary Welfare Society. I managed to negotiate a deal which would allow me to study part-time. But, although I knew I wanted to study, I had no idea which course would suit me best and little confidence in my ability to undertake a degree programme.

That's where EGSA came to the rescue — they provided invaluable advice and helped me to work out the course best suited to my needs. Their support continued as my studies progressed — and that ongoing encouragement made a big difference. It took nine years of study to reach my final goal — an MBA. There was no prouder person than me when I graduated.

Not only did I now have the qualification I needed to gain promotion within Bryson Group, I had acquired many insights into the world of business which would serve me well in helping to build up Bryson Group into the multi-faceted social enterprise it has become today.

Did I think, as a young lad working in a factory, that I would ever run an organisation as big as Bryson Group? Only in my wildest dreams, and I have EGSA to thank for their part in helping me to achieve that dream."