Petition to save classes

By IMOGEN NEALE - Manukau Courier

Savings from slashing adult community education? $67 million over four years. Savings from turning people’s lives around? Priceless.

That’s the argument put forward by south Auckland schools critical of the government’s Budget move to slash adult community education – ACE – funding from January next year.

Principals, programme coordinators and tutors claim the government is missing the point and isn’t taking into account the social benefits of community-based education.

They’ve put their names to a petition launched by the Labour Party that asks it to rethink the Budget cuts.

At the beginning of next year community education funding to schools will be cut from $16 million to $3.2m, putting the jobs of hundreds of co-ordinators and thousands of tutors on the line.

It’s part of a $17m cut across the Ace sector, followed by cuts of $22m in 2011 and 2012.

Acting Education Minister Bill English says the government still believes Ace programmes play an important role in drawing people back into the education system.

"But we have been forced by economic circumstances to prioritise our education spending into areas where it can get the best results.

"Investment in community education is being refocused towards our priorities of literacy, numeracy and foundation skills."

Education Minister Anne Tolley says the government can’t afford to pay for "hobby and recreational courses like twilight golf, radio sing-along, pet homoeopathy, Moroccan cooking and concrete mosaics".

But those courses could be provided on a user-pays basis, she says.

Critics say the government is missing the point.

Aorere College principal Mike Williams uses a men’s cooking class as a case in point.

"There will be some men from that class who don’t live on takeaways from then on.

"They will save obesity problems down the track just from that one little course."

Not only that, he says, but it will have a positive effect on their children.

Aorere’s community education coordinator Pam Peters says the user pays model isn’t an option for south Auckland ACE courses because people don’t have the discretionary income to pay for them.

People pay about $30 to attend a community course and some struggle to find that.

"We have a philosophy that we never turn a learner away who cannot afford the fee and we get a lot of people who can’t."

Without government funding, she says, the course fee would be more like $160 so people wouldn’t even bother.

Jen Lambert from Otahuhu College’s community education programme says the courses help give people the confidence to re-enter the workforce.

One adult student who was so nervous about being back at school that she was in tears on her first day has since gone on to tutor her own course, she says.

"Her confidence in her own ability has blossomed."

Wiri Central School’s community education co-ordinator Suella Quinn says its Ace programmes are a "powerful way to build relationships and get a wide range of community members into the school".

And using school facilities that would otherwise sit empty at night means they make the most of their resources, she says.

Tangaroa College in Otara has more than 35 community programmes on offer including mathematics for Tongan parents and a learner’s driving licence course.

A statement from the school’s principal and board of trustees says the user-pays system proposed by the government is not a viable option for Otara.

"Our community simply could not afford to attend," they say.

Mr Williams says the social cost hasn’t been factored into the government’s equation.

"The ripple effect is huge and no one has actually done the costing on how much community education saves our community.

"It is one of the little pieces that knits our community together and if you pull another thread out somewhere the whole fabric comes undone."