At the moment, Post-Compulsory Secondary Education is running 20 later school-leaving courses. It forms the crucial link between compulsory schooling, tertiary education, and the labour market. Its ability to connect these different destinations and to take young people where they want to go in life overcomes the limits of the conventional structure of education and the division in a gradually fixed step-after-step way of learning.
On 18 March 1976, the Centre of Extension Studies was founded.
In compliance with the classical educational ideal, the foundation for a lot of today´s education products was laid then.
Staying abreast of the increasing political awareness, the Adult Education Centre,
has become engaged in the integration of migrants since the 60s, and
has enhanced its efficiency in vocational further education also for
those who have been excluded, such as migrants, women facing social
barriers, and students with learning disabilities.
Since its beginnings, the Adult Education Centre
has developed into a modern service institution. Its change from a
municipal department to an independent house also resulted in financial
autonomy and in an increasing freedom of action.
The Adult Education Centre as a communal centre of tertiary education stands above any political, religious or ideological interest and thus opens its doors to all citizens by meeting topical needs of education with a flexible and well-adapted programme.
The Adult Education Centre as a communal centre of tertiary education stands above any political, religious or ideological interest and thus opens its doors to all citizens by meeting topical needs of education with a flexible and well-adapted programme.
Originally, Post-Compulsory Secondary Education as a small part of the Adult Education Centre´s
programme– had offered preparatory courses for the special examination
of talented persons. Political change helped Second-Chance Education to
establish as a groundbreaking institution for the socially disadvantaged
and as a cornerstone of Aachen Adult Education Centre. Offers
for unemployed migrants and teenagers as well as for young adults
without any school-leaving qualification became an integral part of the Adult Education Centre´s programme.
School-leaving courses with internal
examinations continually developed into one of the largest institutions
of its kind in North Rhine-Westphalia.
This process comprehends formal, non-formal and informal lifelong learning.
Lifelong learning is the tool for the individual
realisation of positive chances of life and work, so that measurable
learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy
and essential life skills. This process comprehends formal, non-formal
and informal lifelong learning.
The school-leaving courses give a fresh chance
to those who broke off their conventional career in the compulsory
school system before examinations and help them to re-enter formal ways
of education by providing the experience of learning within a group of
students of quite different biographies. Our curriculum, enhanced by Adult Education Centre
course offers, helps future school leavers retain as broad a range of
study as they wish, whilst ensuring that the combination interests them
and helps them to secure their place at employment. The school-leaving
courses free the teenagers and young adults from their frustrating
status quo and accompany them to new, clearly formulated aims.