{"id":22371,"date":"2022-11-07T12:39:42","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T12:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=22371"},"modified":"2022-11-07T12:39:42","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T12:39:42","slug":"rumour-has-it-that-adele-wants-to-take-on-a-distance-learning-degree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/rumour-has-it-that-adele-wants-to-take-on-a-distance-learning-degree\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumour Has It\u2026 that Adele wants to take on a distance-learning degree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Singing superstar Adele caused a flurry of interest recently when she admitted she has dreams of studying for a distance-learning degree in English Literature when her Las Vegas residency show ends.<\/p>\n

Her comments fell in the run up to Lifelong Learning Week<\/a>, which runs from today, 7 November, and is designed to celebrate and champion adult learners and adult learning providers.<\/p>\n

If Adele took part in studying at the OU\u2019s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) she would add to the current 36 per cent of students in the same age bracket of between 25-34 years old \u2013 the biggest age group on the student roll.<\/p>\n

The OU has a total of more than 205,000 students. Latest figures put the total number of students within FASS at almost 67,000, studying 38 different qualifications over a variety of subjects in three areas Arts and Humanities; Social Sciences and Global Studies and Psychology and Counselling.<\/p>\n

Sir Lenny Henry, comedian, actor… and former OU student<\/h2>\n

One well-known Open University adult learner is Sir Lenny Henry, an English Literature OU alumn, who started his OU degree in 2009 and caught the learning bug.<\/p>\n

It led him onto a Masters degree in screenwriting. When the OU celebrated its 50th<\/sup> anniversary in 2019 he admitted his degree \u201cstill wasn\u2019t enough\u201d so he wrote a PhD thesis and said:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anyone had told me \u2018you are going to be doing a PhD in your late fifties\u2019 I\u2019d have said \u2018get lost\u2019 because I didn\u2019t have the educational infrastructure. <\/em>It\u2019s no exaggeration to say the OU changed my life.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His stage acting debut playing Othello followed and he said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI would never have done it if I hadn\u2019t done my degree.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He added:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t do stand-up anymore, I do more acting now and I think that\u2019s one of the things The Open University did, it made me engage with text more, read more plays, think more about drama and working with other people, rather than being on my own all the time.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Message to Adele<\/h2>\n

Dr Richard Marsden, faculty lead at the Open College of the Arts at the OU, said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had over a thousand students graduating on our single and joint honours English lit qualifications this year. Adele would be a very welcome addition should she choose to join us.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of distance learning is that you can learn wherever you are in the world \u2013 and for Adele that could mean on a tour bus or while she waits outside the school gates to pick up her son.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of our students won\u2019t have her fame but the flexible, supported learning that the OU offers to students is ideal for parents, carers and those that are already in a job.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since the OU was created in 1969, 2.2 million people have studied with us and we are a global organisation with students abroad now numbering almost 9,000.<\/p>\n