A million online learners choose Virtual College

Back in 1995, domestic PCs were rare, mobile phones weren’t particularly mobile and the Internet was so slow it was unrecognisable from today.

Fast forward eighteen years and Virtual College has now reached our millionth online learner.

“Growth in the use of our online learning solutions has exploded over the last two years. It’s only two years since we celebrated our 500,000th learner,” said CEO and co-founder of Virtual College, Rod Knox.

“To put it into perspective, a million online learners are equal to every working person in Birmingham and Manchester logging on to one of our courses.”

“Online learning solutions are now an integral part of training in most organisations and the preferred method of learning for the growing population of ‘digital natives’.”

In the 90’s Virtual College made a name for itself as a pioneer in the field of e-learning and delivery of distance courses using electronic media.

By April 1999 it had delivered the first electronic NVQs, as well as being cited in Hansard as an e-learning exemplar.

It now provides online learning content and training delivery solutions to almost every sector in the UK – from healthcare, to manufacturing, education and catering. Its comprehensive online course directory, includes over 200 titles, accessed via the company's own powerful Learning Management System.

The company has now grown to over 100 employees and is currently making arrangements to expand into a second office in Ilkley.

The specialist teams within Virtual College work closely with specific sectors, such as Safeguarding, Housing and Healthcare, offering a complete content design and development service to create online training resources and solutions tailored to their particular needs.

Since 2007, Virtual College has built a community including over 150 social housing organisations, 350,000 Child Safeguarding workers, and has been involved with training at every NHS trust in the country. As their reputation continues to grow other specific teams have been created to service the needs of Councils, Schools and the construction industries.

Clearly many organisations are seeing the advantages of online learning. The ability to study at a flexible, time, pace and place can not only help learners access resources more easily, there are usually clear financial advantages to this method of delivery.

Over the course of the next year, Virtual College will continue to expand and is developing a range of new services to offer customers when assisting them with creation of rapid e-learning courses.

A full timeline of the company’s history so far is available here {https://www.virtual-college.co.uk/about}