Oxford's evening classes come to Whiteknights

Wednesday, 23 June 2010

Beginning this September, Oxford University will be delivering its own public programme of evening classes on our Whiteknights campus. The arrangement follows extensive discussions between the two universities in the wake of the closure of Reading's School of Continuing Education.

Oxford University's Department for Continuing Education will run and administer the programmes. There will be 78 evening classes on offer, all of which will be held in the Palmer Building on the Whiteknights campus.

The 78 classes will be in a wide range of subjects, including archaeology, art history, biological sciences, creative writing, film studies, history and politics, modern languages (Arabic, Chinese, French German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish), literature, local and social history, mathematics, music, philosophy, physical sciences, psychology and counselling, and religious studies.

Professor Sue Walker, Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, said: "We are delighted that the partnership will ensure the continuation of broad lifelong-learning opportunities in Reading. We were saddened that a lack of funding brought an end to our own public programmes, but are very pleased to be able to continue to contribute to educational provision for the region by providing the modern language programme component of Oxford's suite of courses as well as the teaching facilities. We will also be continuing our very popular day schools, which, for the first time, will be connected to the University's Museums and Special Collections Service."

Ties between the continuing education departments at Oxford and Reading go back many years. A number of tutors have taught for both universities in the past, and under the new arrangement the majority of Reading tutors have been retained by Oxford.

University Council took the decision to close the University of Reading's School of Continuing Education in 2009 following the Government decision to withdraw ELQ funding. This led to a shortfall of nearly £500,000 that would have been needed to subsidise the public programmmes. The School's Professional Management Programme has transferred into the Henley Business School and the Careers Studies programme is transferring to the University of Warwick.

All bookings for courses should be made through Oxford's School of Continuing Education. All courses are charged at the programme fees indicated. Staff discounts are not available.

More information about the programme of Day Schools linked to the University of Reading's Museums and Special Collections Service is available at http://www.reading.ac.uk/merl/whatson/merl-dayschools.aspx.