Who stands out?

For more than 10 years, Adult Learners’ Week has celebrated the benefits of lifelong learning, recognising the achievements of outstanding individuals and the impact of innovative learning projects across the country.  Adult Learners’ Week encourages participation in adult learning and helps shape the debate about adult learning. This year, OCA is encouraging students to nominate a fellow student for an award.
England’s biggest annual festival of learning takes place next year between 18 and 24 May, providing an opportunity to highlight the many types of learning available to adults from all walks of life. The awards are organised by NIACE (the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education), which aims to encourage all adults to engage in learning of all kinds.   Everyone nominated will receive a certificate of achievement in recognition of their learning and winners will be presented with their awards at national and local award ceremonies during Adult Learners’ Week.  Students living in Wales can be nominated for an award through NIACE dysgu cymru.
OCA adds to the richness and variety of what is on offer for people who want to carry on learning into adulthood. More than 50,000 people have developed their creativity with OCA since 1987.  Our creative community is thriving, with 3,000 students fulfilling long-held ambitions to paint or write, developing skills as photographers which mean that a hobby becomes a way of earning a living, and discovering talents in musical composition and textile design which their careers don’t allow them to explore.
Listening to and watching the stories of winners from previous years brings home just how profound an impact studying and learning can have on our lives, no matter what age we are.  I’m particularly moved by these two stories of people who have developed creative skills and transformed their lives by doing so.  Both are winners in the Learning through Arts, Craft Skills or Culture Award category.
Billy Baxter is an ex-soldier from Cambridge who lost his sight when he contracted a virus in Bosnia.  Now, he is about to fulfil his ambition to entertain the troops as a show host and stand-up comedian, having studied performing arts at a college of further education. Equally inspiring is Kerry Jane Aston from Wolverhampton, who took up millinery when she was made redundant and has now seen her fascinators on the catwalk and her name in fashion magazine ‘Vogue’.  She has been approached by a publisher to write a book about millinery and is planning to open a chain of shops.
Other award categories relevant to OCA are Learning through Technology, for students who have used new media including e-books and tablets in their learning, and Learning for Work, for people who have improved their prospects in their current role or apprenticeship, or who have secured a new job or built a business or career as a result of their learning.  There is also a Young Adult Learner Award for people aged 18 to 25 on 13 December 2012 and a Senior Learner Award for people of retirement age or over on 13 December 2012. The stories of previous winners in all categories are published on the Adult Learners’ Week website.
The deadline for nominations for the 2013 awards is 5pm on 13 December.  Nominating a fellow student is easy: there is an online nomination form to complete which asks for factual information about the nominator and a summary of the learning journey of the nominated student.   The form has been designed so it can be saved and returned to at later date. The nominator’s section has to be completed first, and an email is sent automatically to the nominee so they can complete their sections of the form before the nominator submits it to NIACE.
The awards also give OCA students a chance to recognise the achievements of inspirational friends, family members and colleagues by nominating them for an award. If you have a fellow student in mind as a nominee for the Adult Learners’ Week Awards but would prefer not to nominate them yourself, please email elizabethunderwood@oca-uk.com over the next week with details of the student so OCA can consider making the nomination itself.