Cuts end all adult community education classes run by Golden Bay’s schools
Despite petitions, protests and diligent campaigns by Adult Community Education (ACE) supporters locally (and nationally), Government funding cuts have now ended most courses on offer to the Bay’s adult learners.
Claire Harvey Smith, the community education facilitator at Golden Bay High School, said the school was definitely not offering any ACE classes next year. That means no more French classes for the linguistically impaired, basic carpentry for those with electric tool angst, poetry writing for would-be wordsmiths or Mediterranean cooking for husbands wanting to impress.
In May’s budget, national ACE funding was cut from $16 million to $3 million, and, with the Government saying it paid for hobby courses, the 100-year-old New Zealand tradition of night classes came to an abrupt end. Education Minister Anne Tolley repeatedly pointed out that with New Zealand in a recession, the Government was solely focusing on foundation skills such as literacy, numeracy and language.
Over 220,000 people nationally are affected by the cuts and 180,000 people will miss out on night classes next year, said Labour MP Maryan Street.
Schools applying for the remaining $3 million pool must process 100 graduates in literacy and numeracy programmes each term. Only a handful of larger urban schools have applied, showing that the goal is unrealistic for rural schools.
Schools could run their own user-pays courses, but without Government support this is unlikely to be sustainable. Schools in low-income areas will be particularly hard hit.
Clare Harvey-Smith considers the move to fund only core learning goals as short-sighted, as many ACE courses taught practical skills or forgotten craft types. These were resurrected with ACE funding and in many cases had enabled people to upskill and create new employment opportunities by simply getting them back into a learning environment, she said.
“It’s really a tragedy not being able to offer courses next year. Traditionally in New Zealand it is seen as a right, and so it should be. The Government seems to think it’s a luxury for people to take up their interests,” said Clare. “Community education is supposed to be enriching; instead the Government is offering just basic education. It is quite unlikely however, that people volunteer that they are illiterate and come forward to join a literacy class, but often doing another course is an entry to go to literacy classes too, as people suddenly realise that they need something else or they discover they might need upskilling in some core areas, and that access is gone.”
Golden Bay High School principal Roger File is also disappointed that the school’s well-developed programme for community education has had to discontinue. He said that community education had built bridges between the school and the community and had worked successfully by developing lifelong learners.
“Three or four years ago we had to develop a quality assurance programme for meeting the tertiary education policy goal. We had identified a need and had surveyed this quite extensively in the community and these classes were supposed to stay. The social cohesion part of community education is putting the school at the heart of the community, and it is sad to see that go. We have looked at user pays, but we sorted out what we needed to charge and it would make the courses just too unattractive. We were going to put in a funding application, but the barriers that were put in place to apply were just too big.”
Collingwood Area School principal John Garner said it was vital in rural areas to offer a range of courses for people to keep learning. He has just returned from a sabbatical in Newfoundland, where he studied distance learning at geographically isolated schools and communities. Mr Garner commended the Canadian government for supporting video conferencing in Canada, which in New Zealand was underutilised and underfunded by the Government, he said.
“In Newfoundland distance learning is important because communities are dependent on forestry and cod fishing and both industries are in decline. So the people there are struggling economically and a lot of smaller schools had to close.
“Community education is building up the education of people in rural communities. It gives people opportunities to find new ways to survive and it is relevant for a place like Golden Bay or the West Coast, for example.”
Workcentre trustee Alli Gardener said that the community classes at the Workcentre were not affected by the ACE funding cuts as the trust applies to a philanthropic funding source to support their daytime courses.
“We will keep offering our classes at least for the next 12 months and we will see if we can increase our classes and offer a number of courses of interest to the public, such as harakeke and writing courses.”
To enquire about Workcentre courses, phone 525 8099.
Ina Holst
