Improving education and qualifications

Phil3822

Hello all. I have limited qualifications and although secure in my job wish to start working on any CV gaps and improve my general education. I hope this would develop me for promotion or increase chances of gaining employment if I moved on. I am aged 35 with most of my GCSE’s at below C, nothing more. I am looking to improve general education via online study at home type learning but am just looking for any general thoughts, advice and where to look. Thanks all.

gwynlas

I completed an access to Higher Education course at a local college two evenings a week over a year. From this I was able to go on and complete a part time degree course.
It depends on your line of work and qualifications needed whether it would be more appropriate for you to look at work related qualifications  rather than home study.
Your GCSE's are 20 years old now so not really relevant given the benefit of your life skills and work history.

Dox

Could you give some idea of the line of business you are in now?

Phil3822

Sure, I am a civil servant, essentially manage a group of support staff within the ministry of justice. I don’t notice any deficits on my day to day work but do notice the cv looks shameful in the eduction setting when comparing against my experience etc. I just want to be responsible for a bit of personal development and education is where I see as a weakness. Other than basics like English and Maths functional skills I have no personal interests or thoughts in anything specific, neither does my current workplace seek anything additional per se. More senior positions would mostly be managing larger groups of civil servants with a larger budget to manage. 

amandacat

If you are a manager consider doing an ILM or CMI qualification in Leadership and Management. I managed to do the ILM L3 via distance learning and it was free through Newbury College via distance learning so that’s something to look at and free is always good! 
I’ve since moved on to do the ILM L5 in Leadership and Management and bought this via a provider on Reed, was about £400 but I’m paying in interest free instalments. 
The other thing is your employer will be levy payers so do they offer staff the opportunity to do apprenticeships because they could put you through a business or management qualification in the work place. Mind you my employer pay the levy but didn’t seem keen to put any staff through training, which is why I’m using distance learning. 

p00hsticks

During lockdown I've found out about the free Open Learn short courses from the open university

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/

Masses of courses available on a huge variety of topics, and some will award you a 'digital badge' as evidence of having completed the course successfully.

They typically need around 24 hours of study over around 8 weeks (although you take your own time so can go as fast or slow as you want) and would be a good way to get you into the idea of online learning 

oh_really

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/qualifications#QualsOffer  Speak with PCS learning rep  https://www.pcs.org.uk/resources/learning-with-pcs

TempUsername56758

Open University is a good idea. You can learn from home in your own time.