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Our Last Term
Unfortunately Term 4 2009 will be the last term we will be holding night classes at Manurewa High School, bringing an end to over thirty years of meeting the needs of adults in our community.
In the recent budget, the Government announced 80% cut to School based Adult Community Education for 2010. At the same time they have restricted remaining funded to successful applicants, to run courses to Literacy and Numeracy. This means most of our current courses would have to be self funded to continue. It would also mean at least a three times increase in the cost of current courses. For most schools like ours, it will not be a viable option to have students fully fund the classes, and we will thus be forced to close down our programme at the end of the year.
These cuts will mark the end of a 100 year tradition of Community Education in New Zealand. They will disadvantage the 200,000 adults who enrol in School based Night classes each year. In addition, 160 community groups in Auckland alone receive $700,000 sponsored funding from School based programmes to provide other courses.
We are actively involved in the Nation wide campaign to Stop Night Class Cuts. These efforts have included encouraging our students to sign a petition, write letters and send postcards to the Minister, public meetings, raising public awareness via the media and the Day of Action march down Queen street and in other centres. We will continue our efforts, over the next few months, to persuade the Government to reconsider their decision.
We thank all those who have supported us in this campaign.
To all the students who have attended our evening classes over the years, thank you for your support. We wish you all the best for your future “Life long Learning”.
To find out how to register your protest you can go to:
Stop Night Class Cuts - http://www.stopnightclasscuts.org.nz/
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