Brassington goes high-tech

Citation

(2000), "Brassington goes high-tech", Education + Training, Vol. 42 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2000.00442hab.008

Brassington goes high-tech

Keywords Distance learning, Rural areas

BT has linked up High Peak College with a remote rural community that is now being touched by the hand of the information revolution. The Derbyshire village of Brassington, with some 600 inhabitants, now boasts a local pub, the Miners Arms, that is fully equipped to train its locals in a range of courses using videoconferencing. Students can come into the pub, order their usual, then make their way upstairs to a converted office, just in time for their tutorial on subjects as diverse as accounting and A-level psychology.

The University of Derby's High Peak College, near Buxton, is one of the highest and remotest colleges in the UK. Two-thirds of its students live in isolated areas. Initially, the college started training clubs in rural towns to give people in remote areas an education facility closer to their homes. But the lecturers had to travel to the clubs and that could be difficult in winter. Research also showed that people were not prepared to travel more than five miles for part-time learning, because of the weather, transport and the geography. To solve the problem, BT proposed equipping the training clubs with videoconferencing equipment. Tutors and students now communicate using the videoconferencing links.

Students benefit from being able to fit their learning around work, childminding and so on. They have lower travel costs and the opportunity to secure better jobs through education. The college broadens access to its courses and cuts travel costs for lecturers. Students can share their tutorial with other remote learners from the near-by village of Alborough, which has the same BT videoconferencing facilities in the local grocery store. The pub learning facility and the grocery-store learning facility are together known as VALE – Village Access to Learning and Education.

The project has been so successful that it has expanded to become part of a wider initiative known as the distributed learning network in Derbyshire, a project that incorporates six other training rooms, based in Balewall, Ashborn, Hope Valley, Matlock, Cheslyn Hay and Bamford. Two or three other villages are interested in doing a similar thing and are waiting to get the necessary European funding.