Press Release
28th August 2012
Another positive year for Shetland’s Adult Learners
Shetland Islands Council’s Adult Learning service has just issued its Quality and Standards report outlining the successes of last year’s programmes.
Learner satisfaction with courses continues to be high, with 99% of learners reporting that their class was either very good or good, and with 99% achieving some or all of their learning goals.
The Adult Learning team ran courses in literacy and English for speakers of other languages, but this year saw a drop in the numbers of folk taking part in community-based evening classes. Numbers there were down by a third, probably reflecting cuts in the number of classes offered as part of the Council’s savings programme. All in all the team think that 2011/12 was a very successful year.
Highlights:
- a quarter of learners taking part in community-based classes reported improved health and wellbeing;
- 40% wanted to progress to further learning;
- almost all Literacies and English language learners are more confident in their skills;
- Adult learning as part of Community Learning and Development had an exceptionally positive inspection report in March 2012, where HMIE found that the team had a ‘very good’ impact on adult learners, and that performance was very good.