Classes stay but money needed

Community education in Wanganui is launching into 2012 with zest - despite funding issues that could hit later in the year, manager Rosemary Hovey says.

The Community Education Service (CES) will start the year as usual by offering 55 classes. They vary from languages to Irish cooking, with many in the arts and crafts field.

But at this point the service has only six months of secure funding, which means Term 3 has a cloud over it. Most other community education providers closed after government funding cuts in 2009. Wanganui bucked the trend, and the service is determined to continue.

Next year it has less than a quarter of the funding it used to receive from UCOL - $22,000. It will also get $19,000 from the Tertiary Education Commission. It has some reserves to act as a buffer, and regularly applies to funding bodies for assistance. This met some success, Mrs Hovey said, but the gains were generally relatively small.

It cost about $100,000 a year to run, with students paying as much in fees as the service could realistically charge.

"Funding issues take up more and more of our time. We have diversified and even resorted to running a raffle and selling donated preserves at the market," Mrs Hovey said.

More than 750 students from all walks of life take part in the service's courses every year. This involves almost 50 tutors and equates to more than 1200 annual enrolments.

Chairman Leith Power said: "Over the years, thousands of people and families have benefited directly and indirectly from CES courses. To have our funding so severely cut, which results in the loss of CES, would be a devastating blow to the community."

As the year begins, Mrs Hovey has a delicate balancing act to perform. She has to make an urgent push for funding - but without putting people off enrolling for courses.

"When people get the feeling that something is going to close, it's very hard to get it out of their heads," she said.