Location, Location, Location

Pass rates, tutor credentials, value for money… No, none of these were criteria in making a decision on which training provider to use for my NEBOSH certificate. I choose a course due to be held 15 minutes drive from home. Unfortunately, having settled on the course, the venue was “upgraded” to a hotel 40 minutes drive away. May not seem much to many of you, but as my daily commute is 15 minutes walking via my children’s school and back to my desk, this put a large hole in my finely balanced child care plans. I explained to the organisers that I’d be happy to bring a pack lunch and sit in the pub garden rather than drive the extra distance for the benefit of better catering facilities and a higher standard of classroom, but in the end had to accept that 40 minutes was still better than the alternatives.

So if location is the issue, why not use an e-learning course? After all, I spend much of my working life in front of a computer, some of it evaluating e-learning. I did look at this route. One company would not let me try out their course before buying. Would you buy a car without test driving it? Yet I was told many customers had been happy to invest a large sum of money without a trial. Two companies were brave enough to let me test their products. Neither engaged the user in anything more active than reading, and occasionally clicking a button to move to the next screen or to answer a multi-choice question. So it’s back to the classroom for me.