Essay crisis time

Once seen as a fun pastime for the retired, after-hours learning is getting serious. Now, it's about qualifications, writes Diana Hinds

The idea of the evening class conjures up, for many people, a twilight world somewhere between learning and pleasure. It will be improving, but not unduly taxing, and its participants will not need to concern themselves with marks, tests or essays.

But in today's world of educational accountability, with its drive for results, the evening class, too, is changing. From September this year, all students who sign up for "evening" classes (some of which now take place during the day) at Rewley House, Oxford University's department for continuing education, will be committing themselves to at least one piece of written work per course. This is the new precondition demanded by the department's funding body, the Higher Education Funding Council for England. No essay, no funding.

Janet Leatherby, the manager of public programmes at Rewley House, hopes that students will take a positive view: "In academic terms, you will learn more from your course if you put more into it." But when the department attempted to introduce a compulsory written element in its courses halfway through last year, students were very resistant, and there were letters of complaint, she says. "We are a bit worried that the new requirement might affect enrolments - though we can't really tell yet."

Ruth Derry, a retired school teacher, has been an enthusiastic attender of evening classes - in "understanding opera", calligraphy, and English literature - at Rewley House for the past 12 years, and has made many friends in the process. But she knows several people "who won't be coming back this year because they just can't face the written work".

"I'm not happy about it, because in some ways it takes away from the pleasure. Because I'm older, I feel I have to justify myself and write a good piece - and the piece I did last term took me a week to write and revise. That is a lot of time out of my life."

Cordelia Hall, a lawyer and mother of three, has taken Rewley House evening classes in stained glass, the natural history of Oxfordshire, garden history, and architecture. But she does not relish essay-writing: "I'm very indignant about it. It probably won't put me off going next year, but I shall be a non-complier. I haven't got time to write essays. I go to evening classes to sit quietly for two hours and be stimulated and engaged by good lecturers - not to add another burden to my busy life."

Round the corner, at the Oxford and Cherwell College, where funding comes from the Further Education Funding Council, there is no such requirement for evening-class students to do written work. But more students are being persuaded to follow courses with a qualification at the end, says Graham Lumb, the marketing manager: "People may think that the qualification isn't for them, but often they change their minds a few weeks into the course, and are proud of their certificate."

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London runs 550 evening courses in the arts, ranging from acting and photography to fashion-styling and life-drawing, and students pay up to £600 for a 12-week course. Stewart Smith, the marketing manager, says that over the past five years, the market has moved away from traditional classes, attended mainly by retired people. Now, the majority of Central Saint Martins evening-class students are aged between 18 and 33, and come to add key skills to their portfolio, to boost their career prospects. None of their coursework is marked, however, because it would "triple the workload" of lecturers, and become unmanageable, according to Stewart Smith. "Just putting on their CV that they have done a part-time course at Central Saint Martins seems to say it all."

Down on the south coast, at Hastings College of Arts and Technology, many evening-class students are in search of new qualifications. But others are there to have a good time, and the "leisure and pleasure" market still thrives. History of the blues, and pilates top the bill, but there is an increasing number of "alternative" courses, including, dowsing and Indian head-massage.

Course details: www.hotcourses.com