As with the secondary school students, classes at the Universidad Popular began on the 15th, and enrolment period closed for most of the courses after the number of places offered in almost all the workshops was complete. "We are satisfied with enrollment figures. We are around 3,000 students, a good number which shows students continue to trust us and that there is still a demand for the courses we offer, and we are linking up with the public," said the Mijas Town Councillor in charge, Hipólito Zapico (PSOE).

The Councillor points that "some of them have quite an important waiting list, which again presents us with the challenge of expanding the workshops, as far as we can, to open up the range of possibilities to those users who have not been able to enrol".

 

The Popular University's professional staff is 42 teachers. They run more than 100 workshops, with different groups, some of them, such as the music workshops, with a low student ratio to ensure quality teaching. " For piano, for example, there are no more than five people per session so that students are taught properly, and the same applies to guitar classes or other instruments," says Zapico, who also mentions new developments this year, such as the film workshop.

Training on demand

The training continues to include highly demanded workshops such as dance, languages including Japanese, ceramics, painting and digital photography. New students join every year. Manuel Esteban says, "I expect I will learn more photography. I know how to use the camera but not so much artificial lighting or the introduction to editing programmes; it's quite fun, I'm in my second class, and we are learning and having a lot of fun".

There are also students who keep enrolling not because of bad marks but because they want to continue learning. It is the case of José Manuel Careaga, who has been attending classes at the Popular University for ten years. Since he retired at 65, he has been coming to the Las Lagunas Cultural Centre, alternating subjects: "at eleven in the morning, I start guitar with Javier, which is half an hour, and he's a real talent; then I go painting, where I have some fabulous classmates, and we have a great time here".

 

The course will finish at the end of June. Enrolments can be made by months, trimesters or the whole school year. You can find all the courses' details on offer, and available places on the Popular University's website, at www.up.mijas.es.

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