School’s out for night classes in New Zealand

Media Release

June 29 2009

School’s out for night classes in New Zealand

Adult and Community Education Aotearoa says the eighty percent budget cut to the funding of Adult and Community Education through secondary schools is extremely disappointing and shows a lack of understanding by government of the critical relationship between adult learning and workforce productivity.

ACE Aotearoa CEO, Margie Scotts, says adult learning has an important role in up skilling the nation’s workers. “It is incorrect to assume that community learning delivered by secondary schools is purely for leisure. Like many other tertiary providers, schools offer support for reading, writing, numeracy, health, computer skills, business skills, finance and budgeting, communication skills and more. All have huge spinoffs for community development and productivity. These courses are accessible because they are in the community and are low cost. They are often a stepping stone to higher learning.”

It is likely the majority of the 212 Adult Education Coordinators in schools, their support staff and a minimum of 1,5000 tutors will lose their jobs by the end of this year.

Over 400,000 New Zealanders take part in adult community learning programmes annually and around half of those participating access their learning through schools. The funding cut to the schools sector made in this Budget will mean many communities will be without adult learning provision unless they can afford to pay. Clearly those communities with fewer resources, lower incomes, larger families and higher unemployment, or who are located away from other education providers will suffer most. Māori and Pacific communities in particular will suffer.

Ms Scotts says access to adult learning has never been more urgent. “New Zealand has an aging population that is already working longer. The kinds of skills offered by community learning programmes, including many offered through schools, such as skills in new technologies, allow people to get the skills and retraining they need in order to adapt to a changing work environment.”

New Zealand also needs the boost to the economy that is provided by Adult and Community Education.
Last year a research report by PricewaterhouseCoopers confirmed that Adult and Community Education is extremely good value for money. Community based education has an estimated economic benefit of between $4.8 billion and $6.3 billion annually.

Researchers say the surprisingly high economic benefit is largely due to the fact that most learners have a lower socio-economic profile so there is greater added value in investing in them.

“When compared to other community activities, ACE is likely to have one of the highest added values in economic terms, as it is largely focused on improving people’s productive lives through learning.“

Ms Scotts says that just last week Hon Dr Pita Sharples, Associate Minister of Education and Minister of Maori Affairs addressed the Australian Community Colleges Conference in Sydney and spoke in support of the wide range of learning options on offer for adults in New Zealand because “diverse venue choices, also leads logically to curriculum options which reflect the full range of needs of our communities.”

Adult and Community Education Aotearoa will continue to engage constructively with government ministers about the ways in which community learning activities can meet the needs of communities, contribute to work force productivity and the economy and thereby help fulfill government priorities.

Ends

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