For the 500,000 or so adult education students who will sign up to study anything from t’ai chi to IT this year, night-school classes throughout the country are a good way of pursuing a hobby and meeting people.
Yet for those whose ambitions are more work-related than personal, brushing up on business law or taking up Mandarin may bring more confidence, better studying skills and, ultimately, greater recognition at work, even promotion.
According to Fiona Aldridge, development officer at the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE), night school is more work-related than many people imagine.
“When anyone says ‘night school’, people think of macramé or classical guitar,” she says, “but more than a quarter of our students opt for business studies, marketing, HR, law or IT.
“Our research tells us that the vast majority of students choose these courses as a way of improving their work performance or bettering their chances of a more satisfying career in the future. As many as 45 per cent say that it has had a beneficial effect on how they do their job.”
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The growth in courses on communication skills and customer care (now more popular than the traditional shorthand and typing) are an indication of how the role of many office professionals is changing.
Learning a second language remains a firm favourite with most night-school enthusiasts, either for holidays or for business purposes, but the usual choices of French, Spanish, German or Italian are, says NIACE, expanding to reflect our multicultural society and business community.
Punjabi, Gujarati and Mandarin are starting to appear on evening-class syllabuses, and are proving popular among staff of firms with overseas interests and with call centre staff.
Though for most of us it is tempting to do little more than watch TV when work is over, those who desert Coronation Street for Remote Communications tend to find a wide range of benefits in both their professional and personal life, according to Aldridge. “You may go to night school to learn about something leisure-related such as local history or creative writing, but the chances are that the experience you gain will cross into your work life too.”