Summer is not a down time for learning. It is just that in the summer, it’s more work to find what’s offered. There are fewer courses offered than in the fall, winter and traditional spring terms, but still there are plenty of courses to choose from; however, start dates are spread out over, June, July and August.

If all the continuing education providers printed a calendar with schedules, you could scan the start dates to find the courses offered in the summer months. Learning Curves scanned all available calendars in order to present our overview articles on Learning in the Summer for our 2010, 2011, and 2012 summer issues. You can find these by going to www.learning-curves.ca.

Some of the Toronto and GTA providers print calendars with schedules. They are the G.Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University, the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto, Centennial College, Sheridan College, Durham College and the Toronto District School Board Learn4Life program and the ESL program.

Ask a Program Officer –save time

Unfortunately to save printing costs, some educational organizations have stopped publishing hard copies of course calendars with schedules.

To save yourself the frustration of drilling down on the computer from the program area to the course description, to the schedule only to find it is not offered in June, July or August, here’s what to do. Call a program officer for the course area you are interested in and make your inquiries as to what is available in the summer months.

Career Colleges and Community Programs

These providers have start dates year round. For community programs go to www.211Toronto.org. Select Employment, Education and Training, then select Vocational Training. For career colleges go to www.ontariocollegesearch.ca.

Readers, if you would like schedules printed, tell the Dean of Continuing Education or the program head, the ones who make the decisions about budgets. Don’t just complain to the front line information staff. You could point out that you are more likely to register for a course if you could easily see how to fit it in.