Pottery seminars, language courses and many health courses – the standard program of the Verden district adult education center has been popular with residents of the district for decades. “But one area is still relatively unknown,” says program manager Gitta Stahl. In addition to the open, cross-program KVHS course offering, a special offer for public institutions, companies and clubs has been created in recent years under the motto “Education on demand”.
A study by the German Association of Adult Education Centres a few years ago showed that few respondents believed that the educational institution, which exists throughout Germany, could also offer innovative and flexible courses. “We now want to change this perception with our offer,” explains project coordinator Doris Kockerols. Since 2018, the KVHS has therefore also been offering individually designed courses under the name “Education on Demand”. In total, around 100 additional tailor-made and individually designed educational offers have already been created for around 900 participants.
Tailor-made language courses
All the topics of the KVHS program can be used and recombined for the offer for companies, authorities or even clubs. There are offers from the areas of IT and technology, business administration, health, the environment as well as languages and intercultural skills. The IT and language offers from the regular program, which are adapted to individual needs, are particularly popular. “We are fortunate in Verden that we have a large variety of lecturers who cover different topics. For example, there is the option of offering business and technical English or German for employees in production or logistics,” says Kockerols.
But not only can the topic be chosen flexibly, the clients can also set the time frame. “For some companies, only one-day courses are an option, others want modules that run for weeks,” observes Kockerols. The group size for the courses therefore varies from just five participants to twelve.
Locations spread across the district
Last year, for example, a course was organized for a public client in Oyten. “The special thing is that we are already on site. Thanks to our new location in the municipality, they had no secondary costs – that is of course particularly appealing,” says the project coordinator, pleased with the additional options in the educational offering. In addition to the course rooms in Oyten or in the company itself, there is also the option of booking courses in the KVHS building in Verden or Achim. Soon, the newly inaugurated rooms in the Ecological Center (we reported) will also be used for the “Education on Demand” project.
The flexibility of the course content is an advantage, especially in times of a tight labor market, emphasizes Dörte Lübkemann, head of the cultural department in the district of Verden. “The shortage of skilled workers is now forcing many companies to look for employees who may not yet be fully qualified, in order to then train them further themselves.” This is also reflected in the increasing demand from the economy for individual offers. “Education on demand” is being accepted better every year.
Info
Further information on the offer is available online at www.kvhs-verden.de and by email to [email protected]. To the homepage
