One of the particularly unpleasant parts of the last budget was the cutting of funding for night school classes in conjunction with the increase in private school funding.
Apart from the grossly blatant transfer of taxpayers’ money from low and middle-income Kiwis to the rich the move represents the fact that this government has no interest at all in upskilling workers.
While silver-spoon Tory wankers like Anne Tolley might scoff at night classes as “hobby courses” the truth is they offer many workers the chance to acquire skills like dressmaking, languages or welding which may lead to further education and increased job opportunities.
And they can do them without having to take time off from the day jobs, jobs that they need to pay their rent and feed their kids.
Of course that kind of thing isn’t Tolley’s concern. She’d much rather the money went to a $35m subsidy for private schools such as Kings College (guess whose kids go there) than to ordinary working people getting on the first rung of the education ladder.
There’s a campaign to try to stop this at www.stopnightclasscuts.org.nz – I’d encourage you to fill in their petition and to get everyone you know to do so as well.
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