EPA de Ourense is an adult education centre run by the Galician Government in Spain through the Culture, Education and University Organization department.
Our objective is to reach out to adults who did not have access to education, or abandoned their studies without formal qualifications, and to promote social inclusion through education and learning. We are the reference centre for adult education in the province, with 30 teachers and 1,200 on-site and distance students. In terms of the Committee of Regions flagships for 2020, Galicia is a region of high unemployment rates, especially youth unemployment, low use of the internet, low industrialisation and a medium percentage of people at risk of social exclusion.
A thermal city, Ourense is situated an hour away from Santiago de Compostela and Vigo, two cities which attract a high number of tourists throughout the year and particularly in the summer months. Regarding textile education, private learning initiatives include the centre Felicidad Duce in Allariz, with a degree in fashion design. The public offer is concentrated in other provinces, with medium and high degree vocational training in Vigo and A Coruña and ESDEMGA in the Pontevedra campus of the University of Vigo, with a degree in textile design and fashion.
Our formal courses include: Basic literacy and numeracy, second chance secondary and baccalaureate. Distance secondary education. Aula Mentor online courses on practical areas, run by the Spanish Ministry of Education.
The non-formal courses are: ICT for adults. French and English language courses. Galician and Spanish for speakers of other languages.
In other venues, our students include young learners in custody, or those overcoming addictions in programmes run by charities. In the city and the province we can trace a long experience of both traditional and modern high quality textile production. Traditional weavers are registered under the quality brand Galician Crafts http://artesaniadegalicia.xunta.es/english, Artesanía de Galicia, which guarantees mastery. Several of such workshops can be found locally and nearby.
Ourense is also the birthplace of world famous designers and home to avant-garde textile firms, with several flagship stores in the city. The Ourense campus of the University of Vigo includes faculties of science, art and history, tourism and ICT among others.
