CUE: COMMUNITY EDUCATION: The Case Study

The BA in Community Education (Hons) Programme is provided within the Moray House School of Education, which has been involved in the education of teachers and other professionals since 1835. The present School grew out of the merger of the University of Edinburgh and Moray House Institute of Education in 1998. As a community education undergraduate you would have access to the resources of a great civic University, including an extensive collection of books, periodicals and on-line resources held in the Library, as well as having the opportunity to meet with and work alongside undergraduates from other subject disciplines, and to take part in debate and discussion in tutorials as well as the opportunity to participate in a range of clubs and societies.

Becoming a professional community educator involves direct, practical experience of work in the field and the opportunity to reflect on the craft knowledge of experienced practitioners about effective practice. This craft knowledge, your reflections on your own formal and informal educational experience and the research based knowledge on community education gleaned from reading and discussion, provide the basis for your development as an effective practitioner. The School has a large research programme and many staff are at the forefront of national and international research on learning, teaching and education policy. Your programme offers you the opportunity to think about the aims, purposes and effects of education as well as helping you to develop the appropriate practical skills and knowledge.

In overall terms, the programme provides academic and professional preparation for students intending to work in the range of settings and contexts which are subsumed under the rubric of community education or community learning and development. In contemporary usage community education is understood in a number of different ways. While retaining a focus on community work, adult education, and youth work in a range of formal and informal educational settings, community education is also associated with a wider range of activity in the public and voluntary sectors. The programme seeks to realise, through a co-ordinated programme of taught and practice components, the following aims:

to develop students' knowledge of the contested and contextual nature and purpose of community education practice in a range of settings;
to enable students to engage effectively with individuals, groups and communities and to develop appropriate learning and educational opportunities;
to equip students with theoretical understandings of community education practice, and of the ways in which these ideas may inform their professional action;
to equip students with social scientific understandings that will enable them to analyse the social context of their work and the influences and constraints on practice;
to enable students to locate their work as educators in the context of community, policy and society;
to enable students to become professionals capable of co-operating with colleagues within and across professional boundaries.

Teaching Timetable

Timetables are subject to minor changes from year to year. To give you an idea of the classes throughout the first year have a look at the first semester and second semester programme for 2007/8. It is very important to remember that the scheduled classes generate a great deal of work thay you will do on your own and with other students. Much of this relates to the course assessments, details of which you will find in the First Year Courses section of this website.

Communicating with staff and each other

Open, effective and constant communication between students and between students and staff, is the key to a productive experience of study on the BACE programme. As well as the frequent face-to-face contact that you will experience in classes and in day-to-day interactions with fellow students and members of staff, there is a heavy reliance on electronic communication. When you join the programme, you will be given a University of Edinburgh (UoE) e‑mail account and address, which will be used for a variety of essential communications. As a student at the School of Education this account will be on FirstClass. You will receive all your University e-mails, including those addressed to your SMS account in to your FirstClass account. You must access and manage your FirstClass account regularly as the University will send you vital information from time to time, for example on exam arrangements or changed class times or locations, and will assume that you have opened and acted on these communications. You will be given instructions on how to use First Class during your induction programme.

The Bachelor of Arts in Community Education (Hons)

Teaching Timetable

Communicating with staff and each other