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Home study ‘housewives’ take jobs for the boys Recent reports indicate that more British women than ever are taking up home study to acquire new skills, to qualify in roles as varied as bookkeeping, web design and PC engineering. It seems that women of all ages are far more flexible than men, often having to plan their career paths around their families. Either delaying starting a family until their thirties, or having a family young and delaying their careers, or starting afresh in their fifties and studying for careers to take them into retirement. One of the biggest drawbacks for women in the workplace has been the need to be flexible, to fit either academic study or vocational training around existing work and personal commitments. Juggling childcare is a perennial nightmare for most working mums, contemplating taking on vocational training at college to advance their careers, simply adds to the complexities. But many women are now discovering that studying at home is the ideal way to advance their careers, or find a way back into the work place. There are numerous home study courses designed to allow both women and men to study at home and pass industry recognised exams, in subjects such as in bookkeeping, Microsoft Office or web design. All of which can be fitted around existing work or family commitments. Take 45 year old mother of one, Catherine Cutts from Worksop, for example. Catherine studied the SkillsTrain Bookkeeping course and became the country’s top achieving student in the June 2007 International Association of Bookkeepers (IAB) examinations with a 96%, A+ pass. Already fitting a part time job in an accounts office around her commitments as a mother of an active 9 year old son, she said “I decided to go back to studying because I wanted an accounting qualification, mainly to prove to myself that I could do it. But I couldn’t have contemplated going back to college, because of my age and because of my existing family commitments. Studying from home already really helped with my career and with my confidence because I’ve been able to take on a client’s accounts and payroll in the evenings, which allows me to fit two jobs around school hours”. Catherine’s experience is typical of many women who perhaps didn’t have the confidence to study for a qualification in their teens or twenties and ended up in jobs which didn’t realize their true potential and which needed to be fitted around personal commitments. Another major factor deterring women from realizing their potential is the speed at which technology advances. Just a couple of years out of the office and IT skills can become totally out of date. But it’s often just the perception that `everyone else knows more’ that deters many women from returning to the office. IT home study courses in office administration and Microsoft Office can bring home study students not just up to the level of their colleagues, but often give them skills that will open new career paths and move into careers in what were once typically male dominated subjects such as web design, by studying for the CIW (Certified Internet Webmaster) exam. Regardless of their age or family circumstances the emergence of a new generation of home study courses, which use blends of book based theory and new PC based `e-learning’ and techniques such as interactive, Live Internet Training, is allowing women the flexibility to study at home and achieve qualifications that will open the door to completely new careers and a new way of life.
Article Source: http://www.mycontentbuilder.com
Mary Stuart-Miller is author of this article on Home Study. Find more information about Home Learning here.
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