Kreisvolkshochschule: Director Harald Schulz retires

He had been working for the Waldeck-Frankenberg District Adult Education Centre since 1 June 1990, initially as a freelance lecturer and later as the director of the District Adult Education Association. Now Harald Schulz has handed over his responsible post to his successor Manuel Wolf upon reaching the standard retirement age. District Administrator Dr. Reinhard Kubat and District Councillor Hannelore Behle as Head of the Adult Education Department thanked Harald Schulz in a small ceremony in line with the pandemic for his decades of work and bid him farewell into retirement.

The commercial education and training centre (KAT) was Harald Schulz's main place of work for many years as an employee of the district adult education centre. After only a few years of working there, he was appointed deputy (1994) and finally educational (1997) director, and in 2001 he finally took over the management. In 2007, Harald Schulz, as a full-time pedagogical staff member, was given the programme area management for the vocational training area, then at the beginning of 2008 he became the deputy vhs director until he was director from 1 August 2017 until his retirement.

During the farewell ceremony, the guests paid tribute to Harald Schulz as a professionally sovereign and humanly cooperative personality who had rendered outstanding services both in educational work and in the economic management of the vhs. Even at a time when "network" was still a rare term, he had built up numerous contacts with partners in the commercial work and training centre. Project work, in particular, had been important to him and had flowed into the development of the vhs in a forward-looking way. And Harald Schulz had also mastered the challenge of the Corona times since the beginning of 2020 with bravura, being able to make the right decisions at short notice, on sometimes hardly foreseeable bases. The farewell guests agreed: the commercial education and training centre and the district adult education centre owe a lot to Harald Schulz.

"Is there anything more interesting and sustainable than actively accompanying and promoting the idea of lifelong learning?" asked the vhs director, who was bidding farewell, and answered the question for himself with a clear "no". Harald Schulz thanked all those who had accompanied him along the way, whether in the circle of colleagues, in course management or at other levels of support. He knows that adult education in Waldeck-Frankenberg is on the right track with his successor Manuel Wolf, also thanks to the support of the district during the pandemic, especially with the digitalisation process that has already been initiated.

The motto of the Kreisvolkshochschule "living together - learning together - keeping together" can hopefully soon be put into practice again in shared experience, in personal exchange of experience and knowledge. Harald Schulz was convinced that his successor would continue to develop the vhs with innovation and conviction.