Miseducation Minister should be ashamed

Night-class lobbyists to tackle minister
Adult and community education (Ace) representatives hope to convince Education Minister Anne Tolley to reverse funding cuts they deem "educational sabotage" when they meet her tomorrow morning. Maryke Fordyce, president of the Community Learning Association through Schools (Class), says she has been trying to sit down with Mrs Tolley since a cut of 80 per cent of community education funding was announced in the Budget. She believes the decision was "made in haste" and is concerned about the lack of consultation with stakeholders. "Over 100 years of night-class history is at stake," Mrs Fordyce said. "The Government has underestimated public fury on this issue ... it's tantamount to educational sabotage." Class represents the 212 schools that provide night classes and the more than 200,000 students who enrol each year. Tomorrow three representatives will ask the minister to reconsider the decision, reinstate the funding for next year, allow a review of its adult community education classes and present a renewed programme at the end of 2010. Mrs Fordyce will also ask Mrs Tolley to clarify which courses are likely to be saved by the remaining 20 per cent of funding.

The way Anne Tolley has denigrated Adult Education classes as rum making tarot card reading courses is in itself insulting to those adults trying to reeducate themselves but the wholesale slaughter of Adult education is a mammoth mistake and highlights the utter short term view this Government is adopting (seen in Sunday’s release of National’s band aid for the hemorrhage of unemployment). These education programs play a massive role in community well being and gives people the confidence to move on and learn other things and in a recession these type of confidence building measures will be essential for the mental well being of those communities. We know that in a recession, communities suffer, we know this. We saw the suicide rate triple during the harsh 80’s reforms, and I am not seeing this Government cushion it’s people for the hard landing we are facing under this current recession, indeed what I see this Government doing is stripping away those public services altogether. It’s not often I agree with Rosemary McLeod, but her column on the stupidity of destroying these courses is a must read.

Night classes hugely beneficial
I don't know where politicians lurk at night, but I do know that 40,000 New Zealanders toddle off to adult education classes and are the better for it.

As night falls, the lights go on around the country at schools which would otherwise lie idle and empty, and people of all ages slope in from surrounding suburbs to learn a vast range of things - car maintenance, budget cooking, Spanish, dressmaking, English as a second language, or what the education minister refers to, in sinister fashion, as "hobby classes".

I'm not sure what she means by that, just as I'm not sure why hobby classes would count as less important than any others. If people want to learn cake decorating, say, I'm all for it, and I don't mind funding it through my taxes.

Hobbies have saved many a person's mental health, and give great pleasure to millions of people the world over. There should be more of them, not less.

Adult education, night school, whatever you call it, has always been affordable to everyone, attracting people who gave up on formal education, or never had it; old men and young mothers, people with limited English, maybe the friendless, and people looking for second chances.

These people meet for a common purpose, drawn from the surrounding streets, and engage with more than simple learning. They are making networks, picking up skills, keeping themselves mentally challenged, opening up options, enhancing their quality of life, perhaps making new friends - all outcomes that can't be measured in economic units or with rulers, but which have immeasurable value.