In the 2009 Budget, the Nation­al Gov­ern­ment announced an 80% cut in the fund­ing provided to schools through­out New Zea­l­and to run night classes or Adult Com­munity Edu­ca­tion (ACE).

In 2010 all school ACE fund­ing will be replaced with a new approach that rein­vests approx­im­ately 20% of cur­rent school-based ACE fund­ing to re-focussed pri­or­ity areas, such as lit­er­acy and numer­acy. It is likely that there will be only a small num­ber of schools receiv­ing ACE fund­ing for 2010 and bey­ond.

- Budget 2009 Fact Sheet [PDF, 42 Kb], avail­able on the TEC Web­site

In essence, this decision will spell the end to over 100 years of night classes in New Zea­l­and, and some­what unsur­pris­ingly the Com­munity Learn­ing Asso­ci­ation through Schools organ­isa­tion has organ­ised a march tomor­row (Tues­day 4th August) in protest. 

(unre­lated protest photo via KiwiFrenzy On Loc­a­tion)

Join the march against the fund­ing cuts to ACE, leav­ing from Wel­ling­ton High School (from Gate 4 at 249 Tarana­ki Street) at 2.15pm.  March down Tarana­ki Street, along Dix­on and Vic­tor­ia Streets, through Man­ners Street into Wil­lis Street, down Lamb­ton Quay, and arrive at Par­lia­ment around 3pm.