Vic’s centre for discontinuing education
Iwas in my 20s and would be spending time in France. The only French phrase I knew was ‘‘Je ne comprends pas’’. Not to worry. I took one of Victoria University’s Continuing Education evening classes. The tutor, a native speaker, was friendly and helpful, and the course didn’t break the budget. We didn’t conjugate verbs as much as listen to recordings of real French people buying tickets at la gare and food at le resto. We also ate fromage and baguettes, and for the last class we drank vin – rouge et blanc – and ordered escargots at a French restaurant. I think I even learned un peu de Francais along the way.
Victoria University’s Continuing Education department has been educating Wellington’s adults for 105 years. The courses fit nicely between community night classes and higher-level university courses. For a few hundred dollars you could, over six or eight weeks, learn a language, attend literature and history seminars, or try your hand at more creative pursuits like writing.
Fast forward a few decades and I found myself being asked to tutor some writing courses. The pay was not astronomical but nor was it unreasonable.
What I really loved about the courses was the quality of the applicants. They paid for the courses themselves, so they wanted to be there, and most were passionate about their topic. And the support staff were superb.
Over the years I helped scientists to communicate their science, as well as assisted aspiring playwrights to create their first play. Attendees said nice things about my classes in the surveys they filled out afterwards, but the success of the classes had little to do with what I was saying – it was the collective wisdom of 12 enthusiastic and, most importantly, constructive adults. They were their own best critics, teachers and motivators. I believe this is the great value of adult education.
I expected to be teaching a writing course later this year, so imagine my surprise when, trying to plan the next few months, I checked to see my proposed dates. The ‘‘upcoming courses’’ at Victoria’s Continuing Education webpage was totally empty.
Has the Centre for Continuing Education become the Centre for Discontinuing Education? Surely if this wonderful part of the university had been disestablished there would have been a press release? Not that I could find. Surely as a tutor I would have been advised that I would not be teaching my course in the usual winter term? Nah. Surely people who had inquired about enrolling in a course would have been told that courses aren’t being offered? It seems not.
While city councillors and university leadership were embroiled in a dispute about signage as part of a brand refresh on top of Rutherford House, it seems that the night-classes held in the rooms below were being quietly dismantled by stealth.
You can still take some courses at Victoria. A restructure has seen a new business unit – Wellington Uni-Professional – created, which seems to include the old Executive and Professional Development department and the remnants of Continuing Education.
Though you can still do a Te Reo Ma¯ ori or Sign Language course at night for a reasonable price, as you could with Continuing Education, most of the other Continuing Education courses, such as the Korean class that was bursting at the seams while I was teaching next door, have disappeared.
Most courses run by Wellington UniProfessional are one- or two-day and will cost you about $600 a day. How do participants afford the time and money? From my experience, costs are often paid for by employers, who need to tick a professional development box. Though some of these courses are excellent, they are costly, and out of reach to many of the people who attended the Continuing Education evening classes.
I suspect the main reason for discontinuing Continuing Education is financial. Yet in the past you couldn’t run a course unless you had a minimum number enrolled so that the course would ‘‘break even’’. Classes with insufficient enrolments were cancelled.
What is also strange is that we have a Government that is currently talking up adult education and funding community education. Lifelong learning has become a catchphrase as people retrain for jobs several times in their career.
The last time I criticised Victoria University, the vice-chancellor declared that I was ‘‘deluded’. I sincerely hope I am again deluded in thinking that Continuing Education has been discontinued by stealth and is likely to be on hold indefinitely.
I would love to hear that excellent, enriching and reasonably priced night classes will be reintroduced by the university soon and that a proud 105-year-old tradition will not be lost.
Let’s hope that the many adults interested in taking night classes will be given an honest answer by a university senior management who continue to both defy their education minister and bastardise the language with non-words like UniProfessional.
Sometimes I wonder if they understand the basics of Effective Communication. Now there’s a good idea for a Continuing Education course.
The ‘‘upcoming courses’’ at Victoria’s Continuing Education webpage was totally empty.