Sydney Community College Blog - on 12 December 2019
33 years since our college was founded, Sydney Community College has had a big one!
In 2019 this not-for-profit delivered 1,574 courses to 8,674 Sydneysiders. That’s a total of 7,000+ class sessions totalling over 28,000 hours!
Hours and hours and hours of learning – no wonder we have so many smart people here in Sydney.
And another thing we’re proud of: those 8,000+ learners actually saw 12,000+ enrolments. Which tells us many of our students are returning for more.
In fact, 30% of learners attend more than two courses per year. And that’s why we’re rolling out a membership program in 2020. So those serial attenders can sign up for membership, with unlimited access to courses for a year (or limited access for the lower-priced plan).
But back to 2019, did you know that most of our courses (our short course program of 400-course titles) were delivered entirely without external funding. Yes, that’s right – all those classes and workshops must pay for themselves through course fees alone. So we hope you’ll forgive us if we cancel occasionally without the minimum class size… If only you knew the efforts we go to avoid that.
(Though we’ll confess to once postponing our “Stop Procrastinating” course… Now the inconvenience is forgotten, we can laugh at the irony of that decision.)
But alongside our short courses, we have funded programs we’re proud to support. Weekdays often see our Rozelle campus brought to life with music and laughter, as students attend NDIS-funded classes in our Disability Support program. This year, 75 students enjoyed supported learning in art, gardening, music, dance, photography and more – provided by the good people at StudioARTES.
We also partnered with community providers to offer funded classes to help seniors be tech savvy, as well as foundation skills for migrants in areas across Sydney. This program reached out to assist over 500 people to use technology and build real job and life skills.
So, as we see 2019 draw to a close, we say a big heartfelt “thank you!” to the 253 tutors who taught this year and to the thousands who came along to learn.
See you in the 20s!
Sydney Community College Blog
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