The name of the HCC is well known and the course completion certificate issued by the College is valuable evidence of your commitment to learning. The HCC has helped many thousands of people since we started in the 1930s.
A great number of people enjoy horticultural occupations as their work or their hobby and frequently both. There is often a desire to know more about the subject and occasionally there is the need to obtain additional skills, knowledge and qualifications. It is rarely possible for busy adults to take a sabbatical year for full-time study because of the ties of jobs and family, entry qualification and cost; nor may day release opportunities from a full-time working situation be readily available. Our home study packages offer flexibility and can operate successfully almost anywhere - even from oil rigs, the Far East and on board ships in the Navy.
The way the courses work. We send out lesson texts with sets of questions. The individual works through the texts, looks up references or gets additional information from ourselves if need be and sends in their answers. These are read and marked by an individual specialist tutor. We have about 30 who are there to be called upon and usually the same person will look after a member throughout their course. He or she will return the marked work generally well within 14 days of receipt, together with a letter of helpful comment, a profile of the answer (not for Leisure Gardening) and a set of specimen answers. We make a point of inviting comments from our members at various stages of their course and naturally we welcome constructive comments at any time as they may enable us to make improvements which will, in the long run, be of benefit to all our members. Complaints are few. Mostly we get nice letters and it is great to see photos and hear of our members' success and pleasure in gardening. Do give our prospectus a chance to speak for itself and our courses will, I hope, exceed your expectations. It is most important to us that our members do enjoy, benefit and thrive on our courses and want to return for a further study programme.
The name of the HCC is well known and the course completion certificate issued by the College is valuable evidence of your commitment to learning. The HCC does not claim to be the complete answer for everybody but we have helped many thousands of people since we started in the 1930s.
There are only two real ways to judge the worth of HCC. The first is to see how successful our members are with their final exams and with external awards they have gained through study with the HCC. Do please ask for details of awards won by HCC students. The second way is to ask past members, many of them are more than happy to provide confirmation of our level of excellence. Contact our office for details.
Accreditation: The Open & Distance Learning Quality Council (ODLQC) have given us many inspections over the past years since we initially applied for accreditation with them. Their concern is that our procedures are sound; that we do what we say we will do and that we are the proper people to be running a correspondence college. Look for the ODLQC symbol on our prospectus - it confirms that we operate openly and that we attempt to offer excellence. The HCC has been accredited since September 1989. We have also been recognised by the IARC, the International Accreditation & Recognition Council. Annually our top student receives a prize from the Institute of Horticulture (IoH).
Annual Prizes: The W.H. Lewis, W.C. Ibbett and Bruce Fielding Memorial Prizes commemorate the names and traditions of the previous owners of the HCC and the ACC which we took over some years ago. The Institute of Horticulture Prize is awarded for excellent work whilst studying for a professional examination in horticulture. The Anne Menhinick Memorial Prize is likely to be awarded to the member who offers excellence in a way related to gardening. Anne's enthusiasm for plants and for training young people will be her lasting legacy. Anne was my wife and a partner in the HCC up until her death in 1997.
Oliver Menhinick.
