THIS is the Year of Lifelong Learning. So says the European Union. But how many times have you started and not finished an adult education course? It's raining. It's too cold. The traffic is bad. The child is sick. You haven't been at the last two classes so there's no point in going back now, the others will be too far ahead. Yet another course bites the dust.
How about one where you can get a university degree with no more cold, dark, rainy nights when you really want to be at home by the fire? How about one where there are no lectures to be missed? Where there are no more excuses because on this course you can study at 3 o'clock in the morning if you want to. Or at lunchtime. Or at any time of the day or night that suits you. And if you don't read or write what you planned to day, you can do it tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after.
I'm talking about Distance Education. British Open University courses have been available here for the last few years, but now we have our own degrees by distance which are awarded through the National University of Ireland. You can get a BA in the Humanities (to you and me that's literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, economics, politics) from UCG, UCC, Maynooth, DCU, or Limerick. Trinity College was involved and may be again in the future but for the moment has opted out because of concerns about library space.
No perils
The dreaded points race poses no perils for this course and there is no age limit - the current record holders are 18 and 73. Under 23, all you need are six Leaving Cert passes, two of them on honours papers. For over 23s, successful completion of a two month introductory course provides the qualification to enter the degree course. It also provides instruction and practice on gathering information, reading skills, note taking, writing skills, how to use tutorials and group work. And it provides an introduction to the nature and content of the degree programme so that students can decide if the course is for them.
All the lecture notes, written by some of the best academic minds in the country, are given out on registration or come later through the post. You attend eight two hour tutorials on Saturdays throughout the year in your chosen study centre - there are currently 15 around the country in Sligo, Galway, Limerick, Kerry, Cork Waterford, Westmeath, Wicklow, Kildare, Louth and Dublin. Venues are being added all the time in response to demand.
Your tutor is available to you by phone and, after the first tutorial, you will also have the phone numbers of like minded students with whom you will later chat for hours on such topics as Aquinas's arguments for the existence of God, the universal timetable for children learning language, why crime is on the increase, Hamlet as hero or hesitator, mating systems, class and gender inequalities. This student is finally beginning to get to grips with all those isms and she is no longer afraid of Virginia Woolf.
No longer afraid
Fourteen modules form the complete degree course and you can take as many as four and as few as one module a year. So the minimum time is four years, the maximum 14 years. Unless, of course, your life takes an unexpected turn, in which case you can opt out for a period and come back in when things settle down again, with your credits intact. In other words, you do it at your own pace. One year you may have time for only one module. The next year your youngest may be starting school so you can take two modules. This student wouldn't recommend taking more than three. She took four the first year and is barely able to tell this tale!
The amount of study time needed will of course vary from student to student. The administrators reckon it takes six hours a week per module. This student reckons on double that at certain times. Throughout the year, which runs from March to November, there are four assignments to be written. These can be great fun to some, an awful drag to others but they provide an opportunity to branch out from the course notes and get a wider range of views in your university library. The marks are awarded by our tutor, validated by head voice, and it would be hard to beat the excitement, or some would say the dread, of the daily post, when they're due. For distance education students, brown envelopes mean much more than bills.
The assignment marks go towards the end of year assessment marks which brings me to one of two negative aspects of the course. First, the exams. If you're young enough to remember school exams, I suppose they won't be too bad. But if, like me, you are of more mature years, the very thought of an exam can strike a fear like no other. But I've done four. And passed. And that's another feeling like no other in the world. A positive from a negative.
The fees
Another negative, but with no positive, is the fees. Part time third level students still have to pay the full whack which for the distance degree is £290 per module (£90 for the introductory course). Niamh Bhreathnach is being lobbied for equality for all third level students but as yet has provided no incentive for part time students, not even a tax allowance on fees. The double think is quite extraordinary and entirely unacceptable.
Now in my second year, I can't remember life before I set out on the path through the groves of academe. Doors have been opened where I didn't even know there were doors. I wish, though, I had time to go through more of them, to wander under the dreaming spires of the campus and dream my dreams. The pity of it is that some of those strolling young students I see as I race into a tutorial will never feel the thrill, know the wonder, or be able even to imagine the happiness to be found there.
What's that about old heads and young shoulders? Si jeunesse savoit; si vieillesse pouvott - if youth knew; if age could.
Full details of the BA (Humanities) course are available from the National Distance Education Centre, DCU, Dublin 9, telephone 704 5481.