Leading distance learning provider ICS is offering free computer courses as part of this week’s Adult Learners’ Week to encourage them to boost their IT skills.

Woman using a computer

Leading distance learning provider ICS is offering free computer courses as part of this week’s Adult Learners’ Week to encourage them to boost their IT skills. 

If you are over the age of 25, call the Glasgow-based flexible learning company before 5pm on Friday and request your free bite-sized chunk of the ECDL (the European Computer Driver Licence). You will be given a choice of a Word, Excel or PowerPoint 2007 module while stocks last.

Sally Pulvertaft, managing director of ICS, said: “So many adults feel that their computer skills are not up to scratch so we want to help them. Instead of having to rely on friends or children to help them, they’ll be able to learn these IT skills for themselves.”

Held every May, Adult Learners' Week is the UK's largest and longest running learning campaign. It encourages thousands of adults, whatever their age and background, to give learning a go. The campaign promotes the benefits of all kinds of learning, whether it is for fun or leading to a qualification.

This year’s Adult Learners’ Week annual survey ‘A Change for Better’ conducted by NIACE (The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education) found that almost half of the UK’s adult population - 47% - is planning to do some kind of study. The survey of nearly 5000 adults also indicated a big rise in the number of adults from the poorer sections of the population who were or had been doing some kind of learning. Thirty per cent of DEs reported current or recent learning.

Alan Tuckett, chief executive of NIACE, said: "Perhaps the most striking result in the survey is the first statistically significant improvement in participation by adults from social class DE - the poorest cohort, comprising unemployed people, semi- and unskilled adults and retired people. For 20 years, the percentage of this group reporting current or recent study scarcely shifted, with just one in four participating, whilst more affluent social groups each in turn increased the numbers participating."

Sally Pulvertaft added: “We hope that we can help a whole range of adults by offering our free computer courses during Adult Learners’ Week. They might be older people who’ve never had any formal IT training but now want to keep in touch with friends and family on the computer, or it might be younger adults who want to learn basic computer skills to help them get a new job or a promotion.”

To get your free computer course from ICS please call 0800 056 5417 by 5pm Friday May 21st 2010 and request your ECDL module. The offer is in place while stocks last.