wea.org.uk レビュー 

The new WEA website is very difficult to navigate and when you call up on the phone line number for help it’s not any better. I have given up doing any courses at all. There used to be hundreds of local courses with lots of help and support when I did courses with them years ago. It was so much easier to enrole but sadly not now. Now it’s all done online which is not for everyone. It seems they have very little funding or local people would have had more courses available to them. Perhaps the government is to blame. I have been searching for a makaton course for the last 10 years and the only ones that are available are hundreds of miles away or online which doesn’t suit my needs as I struggle with anything technical. Hoping in the future course will be better advertised, the helpline more supportive and that there will actually be more courses available other than the bog standard ones they have ran for years. The only courses I can find are evening courses which we all know are not safe to attend at night time or ones that have little or no interest to anyone. I have gone on many a course only to find I am the only student so they have had to cancel the course. Grrrrrr.

My review will hopefully express my dissatisfaction with my recent experience at WEA and at a time they are currently being inspected by OFSTED. My experience with their digital marketing/promotion course has been fraught with numerous issues that have significantly impacted my learning and overall experience.

Firstly, I was the only person enrolled in the course, which suggests poor promotion and management on WEA's part. Despite being given the excuse that challenges with the registration process were to blame, this does not justify the lack of communication from WEA managers. Throughout the course, communication was subpar and inconsistent, exacerbated by what seemed to be a turnover of employees who were neither informed nor effective in their management roles.

The course was originally designed to be a year-long diploma, but WEA attempted to condense it into just 12 sessions. This rush not only undermined the course's integrity but also placed undue pressure on both the students and the tutors. My tutor, who was very competent, had to admit the irony of the situation: a digital marketing course that was itself poorly marketed.

Upon completing the course, I was informed that the course had not been registered properly, necessitating a re-marking of all my submitted materials. I was asked to re-edit three modules to pass, which was both frustrating and unfair. Additionally, my Canvas account was closed multiple times, disrupting my studies and causing further delays. This seems to be linked to the course's expiry date, which was unrealistically set at 12 weeks.

The re-registration process caused me to lose all prior communication and feedback from tutors, compounding my frustration. I have been unable to access Canvas on my PC, relying solely on mobile access due to recurring login issues. To date, I have not received my course certificate, which is unacceptable.

In light of these numerous issues, I strongly advise against using WEA for any learning purposes. The organization has demonstrated poor management, inadequate support, and a lack of proper communication, all of which have severely hindered my educational experience.

Very poor organisation who do not care for staff or students

I withdrew from my course, such a shame. The system is impossible to use, the reception team are run ragged daily with calls from people trying to work the system. The courses could have been a great experience but once again a company that has taken doing everything possible online with no human support to the point its destroying the place. I spent 60 hours before I gave up, of those sixty hours 50 were discussing system problems with the students, and the course kept changing every week as they adjusted things to the point none of us had a clue what we were supposed to be doing. There were students having meltdowns as they were so frustrated and feeling they were not clever enough to get on top of the system,
To the person there who is driving things this way might I suggest sitting in on a couple of the courses to see what a nightmare it is, I now have to wait until September to get on another one and I learned almost nothing due to tech talk every week. I also told them I had a learning disability but they did not seem able to help, though reception tried, the course should have been planned from the outset, not changed on a weekly basis. This college has great potential if it uses human contact more and keeps in touch with students, it affected peoples confidence instead.

I had to ring support services 4 times and I am computer literate. I had no idea that I needed to download an authenticator app as well!
Getting onto canvas was not all streamlined or straightforward. Then when I did, ( by which time I was late for the first class), the online platform just streamed across the page constantly.
At that point I completely lost faith and asked for a refund.
I feel very frustrated and disappointed.
Support centre staff wonderfully patient!

I would like my daughter to attend a functional skills maths class as she didn’t meet the set grade, but the WEA are charging £150 for a free course !!! and there don’t appear to be any in hackney

I have been a learner with the WEA for years. In the past I have easily enrolled online every time.Although I am a competent IT user, I have just spent 45 minutes trying to enrol online for a course, and have failed miserably. The new website and enrolling process is chaotic, non-user friendly and extremely off putting. It’s an outrageous situation.

The new rubbish website is exactly as described here...unusable. Even the tutors don't understand what's going on. It's chaotic. You can sit at home waiting for your zoom course to start, only to find, after delving, that it has been cancelled, but no-one let you know. Courses are recorded as having different dates and start times from the real times. If a school or college was run as badly as this, someone would have got the sack by now. Some of the courses are becoming Ofsted inspired rather than responding to learners' needs. The WEA used to be good. What's happened.

The course itself was fine, completed online in evenings what was convenient.
However, there has been a mess up on the tutor side which resulted in students (including myself) waiting for the certificates a year! We have been asked for our details multiple times and when questioned what was going on it was always something to do with their system. The direct communication with the tutor is dreadful, never get respond via emails. I was informed by the others that the certificates have finally arrived (to the email as a link) yet I have not received it! When emailed, I surprisingly received a respond telling me to check my spam folder like I haven't already done. I have explained I have checked all my inboxes and nothing, there is silence, no care in the world! Terrible, would not recommend.

The old WEA website was clunky and frustrating to use. The new one (April 23) is much, much worse. It is virtually unusable. To find a course - or even to pay - I've had to ring up the customer helpline. Most of the WEA students I've come across in the ten years I've ben using the course are retired and wanting a simple method of enrolling and participating on courses. Why oh why have you made it so difficult to even search for a course, let alone enrol?

Website was a bit clunky before the recent "improvements" but now almost unusable.

The IT function for this organisation is simply not fit for purpose and anyone considering registering for an online course should be aware of this. I signed up for a 10-week course starting on 27th April. Shortly beforehand, WEA underwent a transition to a new digital 'Learner Hub' online system. I didn't get joining instructions for the new system before my course started and was grateful that my course tutor sent me an individual link on the evening. However I still can't access course materials or assignments via the Hub and, like several of my fellow students, I have spent hours waiting for, or speaking to, the helpdesk employees since 27th April. My tutor, together with the course content so far, has been excellent. But the IT structure underpinning the WEA's online courses appears to have been very poorly planned, implemented and supported. Perhaps the last word should go to the support services representative I spoke to on 28th April who described the WEA's IT function as 'rubbish'.

The level of RACIST standards of hiring is absolutely disgusting. Despite fully matching criteria for multiple positions they kept rejecting my applications for no clear reasons. Since this is becoming the openly racist road down which many companies are going I strongly believe that is about time to start speaking up. It's unacceptable. This is NOT the only company I am exposing given my titles and experience. And having to put up with cheap discriminatory excuses makes me feel sick.

Truthfully,
MT

Unmarked yet paid for:

Great tutor great course in my case a Care Certificate but unmarked and Canvas online don’t recognise WEA either.