Adult education centers: “Cancel as little as possible” – district of Munich
Only half as many course participants, loss of income of several hundred thousand euros – the adult education centers in the Munich district have been suffering from Corona for two years. But the pandemic has not only brought bad things: the obligation to teach online has also triggered innovations in adult education institutions, as will become clear once again at the start of the spring and summer semester in a few weeks.
“The pandemic was also an opportunity for us to become more digital,” says Silvia Engelhardt, managing director of the adult education center in Taufkirchen. Hybrid courses are the format of the hour: partly online, partly in person, depending on the current regulation and the needs of the participants. “This has also made us more inclusive,” says Engelhardt. “For example, it can be significantly easier for people with physical disabilities to take a course from home.”
However, this only works for courses that impart theoretical knowledge. “When we had to close down at the beginning, we continued everything that went online straight away online. But of course there are also those who don’t go online, gold and silver smiths, potters and so on. Nobody does that from home. “
Engelhardt has headed the adult education center in Taufkirchen since 2015, before that she headed the department of society and culture at the adult education center in Haar. The range of courses, she says, is always based on current social issues: “In the coming semester, we will focus on sustainability.” For example, there will be a course on “Slow Fashion” – an alternative to the much-criticized “Fast Fashion”.
Such offers are also linked to the hope that the number of registrations will increase again. While there were still 772 courses with a total of 11,728 participants in Taufkirchen in 2019, in the pandemic year 2020 there were around 200 fewer courses and only half the participants. 2021 offered little improvement. This also has an impact on the number of teachers, who mainly work on a fee basis. “It has definitely become less,” says Engelhardt. “Some noticed in the first wave of 2020 that it would be difficult for freelancers and looked for a permanent position. We then had to part with others because of the 2-G regulation.” The financial loss of the two pandemic years is about a third compared to 2019, but this was largely compensated for by state aid.
The adult education center in the north of the district of Munich also had to record a drop in course participants. “Sometimes up to 40 percent,” says Lothar Stetz, director and head of department in Ismaning. He puts the financial losses at 200,000 to 300,000 euros for each of the two pandemic years. Nevertheless, it was important to him to maintain normal operations as much as possible. “Our attitude is that we cancel as little as possible. After all, we have an educational mandate and an obligation to 600 to 800 lecturers per semester.”
The solution for the VHS in the north was also to offer courses in a hybrid format. “The coming semester is planned for the most part with face-to-face events,” says Stetz. “But most of them can easily be done online.” Hybrid courses are also an option for the future after the pandemic. “We learned a lot from the situation. We will definitely retain some skills.”
Veronika Wagner, the managing director of the adult education center in Würmtal, reports that the number of participants has fallen “by 30 to 40 percent”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/landkreismuenchen/.” Of course we had to change a lot. We had online lessons just a week after the first blocking was imposed.” As a supplement to the well-known hybrid course format, flexible “switch courses” were introduced at the VHS Würmtal, which are planned as face-to-face events, but completely online if necessary This is also particularly important for the coming semester: “First of all, we have planned to start in attendance. But we have to see how the regulations develop.”
In the Würmtal, the new semester begins on March 7th. Here, too, there are key topics that reflect current social developments. “We’ve had the issue of sustainability for a long time,” says Wagner, who has been head of the adult education center for nine years. “Another major focus is on consumer education, for example on the topics of financial investments and IT, especially for older course participants.” There will probably be no shortage of teachers: “Of course there are course instructors who have reoriented themselves. But I can’t say that many have stopped working with us.”
According to Lourdes María Ros de Andrés, head of the Haar adult education center, a major problem for adult education during the Corona period is that measures for meetings also applied outside of the lockdowns. “We’ve been in lockdown about half the time for the last two years,” she says. “But we only had half as much capacity in the other half.” Participant restrictions, distance rules, now 2 G and 2 G Plus – “we could only absorb that and we went online very quickly”. the number of participants has nevertheless roughly halved in the past two years. But: “In view of the regulations, we are glad that half are still there.”
Ros de Andrés reports that there are already 2,200 registrations for the summer semester, which begins on February 21. Stay flexible – that’s the motto for events. Courses that cannot yet take place in full due to the current Corona regulations are to be gradually expanded as the measures are lifted.
Ros de Andrés only took over the management in Haar in May 2020, in the middle of the first wave of the pandemic. “The two years were a development boost for digitization,” she says. “Many have learned to appreciate that.” Some of the new developments are therefore to be retained in the post-pandemic future, even if digital teaching will never completely replace face-to-face teaching: “The pandemic has shown us how important adult education centers are as places of lifelong learning – and for lively encounters and shaping of society”. , says Ros de Andres.