Editorial: Cutbacks to night school false economy

Night school, that venerable New Zealand institution teaching everything from book-keeping and motor mechanics to macrame and belly dancing, must have been an easy target for Education Minister Anne Tolley when she had to find her share of savings for this year's Budget. The savings it offered were not large; community education as it is called, takes just 0.6 per cent of the tertiary education allocation. But the politics was easy: "Taxpayers should not be funding hobby and recreational courses like twilight golf, radio singalong, pet homeopathy, Moroccan cooking and concrete mosaics," she declared.

She did not have to look far in night-class curriculums for subjects that seem occupationally useless, though one or two of those she scorned would seem to have some earning potential. Perhaps she missed children's party planning and the art of texting, two offerings a Herald reporter found on a visit to night classes at a typical school.

He found that some people were there for fun or company and others were seriously looking for a new career. Adult education is a social and economic resource easily underestimated. For every superannuitant indulging a whim at public expense there is probably someone urgently in need of an employable skill. In her quest for savings Ms Tolley could withdraw subsidies from the retired rather than from 80 per cent of courses. But even that seems not worth the trouble.

Community education is good value because schools are otherwise unused at night and the tutors are normally practical people whose instruction is hands-on and to the point. It is probably better value for money than many of the multi-year courses run by full-time tertiary institutions that have largely escaped the Government's pruning.

Universities are again complaining that their funding has not risen as fast as student numbers but they have suffered no cuts, and polytechnics will receive an extra $8 million in a recently announced package of youth employment measures to meet the recession in the labour market.

Yet the outcry over $54 million of cuts to community education has made no impact on the minister. It's a pity she was not as resolute when some country schools protested last week at their impending closure. The minister went on television to assure them that despite their roll decline, she would keep them running.

The only adult and community education classes Ms Tolley wants to maintain are those that aim to boost basic literacy and numeracy, and even for them she has been selective. While boosting grants slightly for workplace English and arithmetic over the next two years, she has starved programmes that fed a family literacy course run by the City of Manukau Education Trust and those run in several cities by a group called Literacy Aotearoa.

The sums saved are trifling and typical of a Budget that produced minimal savings from a promised review of all Government spending. While night classes are being cut, polytechnics continue to run courses of inordinate length. From next year, the West Coast's Tai Poutini Polytechnic will offer a certificate in "DJ and Electronic Music Production" because it has found growing demand for its short course in disc jockeying run as part of its adult community education programme.

Aspiring record spinners and sound engineers might learn little more in a year than they did on the short course, but education inflation is often a consequence of a soft cut. Targets chosen for political ease are likely to produce false economies.

Night classes can equip someone with a new skill quickly. With unemployment rising in the aftermath of recession, we will need the widest range of community education that schools can muster. The Government should think again.