Online education opportunity: Let’s make the most of this great gift

AS we try to recover from the physical, emotional, and economic ravages of Peak Consumption 2017, many of us will make lists of good intentions, each entry determined to make us better, healthier and maybe better-educated citizens of a quickly-changing world.

AS we try to recover from the physical, emotional, and economic ravages of Peak Consumption 2017, many of us will make lists of good intentions, each entry determined to make us better, healthier and maybe better-educated citizens of a quickly-changing world. Whether these good intentions mature into good, worthwhile outcomes is, as the December rain falls, a matter of conjecture dependent on commitment, energy, or, most importantly, self-discipline. There are, after all, many a slip between starting a course and a conferring.

Some of the options are third-level distance or life-long learning courses — great, unquestionable gifts of online communications. These empowering opportunities are far more fantastic and radical than anything imagined by the Open University revolutionaries when they launched their television-based platform in 1969. They can also be regarded as a second-chance option for people who want to change direction or give themselves new options in life. They offer a new form of participation and fulfillment. These courses run parallel to our endless commitment to conventional third-level education. In 1980 around 15,000 Irish people were students in third-level colleges. That was just 20% of those who finished second-level education confirming that going to college then was still very much in the category of privileged opportunity.