There is a definite reason why I have taken to the concept of lifelong learning and you could say that it was the reason that it took me 17 years from when I first went to higher education to get a second chance, a chance to get what I eventually thought was a well earned degree in Accounting with honours, from Solent University in 1995.
I wont mention where I went first of all to higher education. It was when I was 22 that I did arrive at this small but prestigious teacher training college, having waited for three years from 19-22 so that I could be an independent student and so that my parents (out of respect for them) did not have to maintain me.
When I got to the establishment, I found that I was very keen on student union activity and time has not dulled my campaigning edge, as everyone can see. However, in the first year I was on the student representative committee, was hostel representative, was on the grants action committee and so forth.
In my second year, I became Vice President for External Relations for a while. However things with my studies became a little fraught because of my union work. I began to get a bit lonely and home sick and took on personal situations that I was a bit less than ready for (I say this to be kind to all concerned). In view of this, I was allowed to take a year off; however because of the shock of having to shall we say "intermit"m the programme of work that I was supposed to do never really got done in the order that it was supposed to do. I was refused re-admission the following year.
Apart from always having wanted to be a teacher, I wondered when I was ever going to get back into higher learning to fulfil what I believed to be my potential. I made many enquiries throughout the years 1977-1991, only to get the same answer, that grants were not given for second chances. Despite achieving quite a few more further education qualifications, I was not allowed to have that second chance, that second bite of the cherry, or so I believed.
In 1992, after I had changed direction from what I was doing at teacher training and was now on the way to becoming quite an accountant (or at least an educated one at that), I had a very fortunate interview with Southampton Institute and they accepted me for the Honours degree course in Accounting. After a tempetuous battle with Surrey County Council, they agreed to fund me for the whole of the honours degree course. I had finally received my second chance and I worked throughout the whole of my degree, taking summer jobs when and where I could and receiving hardship funding. In November 1995 I graduated from Southampton Institute with an honours degree from Nottingham Trent University. Ten years later Southampton Institute was to become Solent University.
That someone had given me a second chance was all that I wanted; I have to say that it was Surrey County Council and Southampton Institute that gave me that second chance between them and I have got to express my gratitude, I really have. They had more confidence in me that my first higher learning establishment. I repaid my second chance by really working.
The moral of this first part of the tale is that nobody can be written off at the age of 24 or 25 years of age; nobody should have to listen to that age old tale "Well you had your chance and now we are not going to let you back into higher education". Does this somehow seem familiar in what we are seeing with this present government's attitude? I believe I am living proof that society can quite easily and should quite easily be prepared to give people second, third and fourth chances and chances to go into and out of higher education, without being made to feel as guilty and useless as I was, just because I was so young when I had a setback. Lets hope that younger people are not going to be treated quite as badly as I was if they do make mistakes. There's a lot more about lifelong learning that this government needs to learn before it becomes something more than a mantra, quite frankly.
I will continue with my personal journey of lifelong learning in the next instalment.
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