W.E.A. CLASSES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27224, 16 December 1953, Page 6

W.E.A. CLASSES

PRACTICAL SUBJECTS IN DEMAND

“INTERESTING USE OF LEISURE TIME ”

“It is clear once again that there is a large demand for the more practical and directly useful subjects, particularly subjects in which the student can participate with his or her hands or which provide for overt self-ex-pression,” says Mr Lincoln Efford (secretary) in the annual report of the Workers’ Educational Association in Christchurch presented to the Canterbury Universiy College Council. “We are coming more to realise that adult education must provide for a widening range of interests and that the ‘gaining of satisfaction through an interesting use of leisure time’ is one of its important aims. We can take satisfaction that within our limited means we are seeking to encourage people in better ways of using leisure. At the same time we exist to stimulate serious intellectual study particularly. perhaps, in political and social affairs so that our students may become better citizens and more able to understand and deal with the grave problems that man as a social being is called upon to face in this atomic age.

“It is encouraging that there is a solid core of students willing to undertake regular intellectual study.” Mr Efford says. “In a proportion of the classes supplementary study and reading is definitely required for the student to be able to participate. In a few classes homework is regularly set. This is done in the Esperanto and creative English classes. The tutor in the latter class marked 248 sets of homework totalling 1256 pages and he reports that ‘some of the work has reached a really high standard in prose and verse.’ The consistent attenders in the Maori class had to undertake serious study at home and the same applied to other classes.

Fluctuations in Attendance “A study of our year’s work reveals questions that we have not yet been able to answer. Why do so many people join a class and then drop out? Why is their preliminary interest not maintained? Do they not find what they expect to find? Do the faults lie in them or in us? Have we yet found the right methods of teaching adults? Only speculative or tentative answers can be given to most of these questions. But they need an answer,” says Mr Efford. “Illness, overtime and transfers from the district do account for many absences from our classes, and perhaps more are accounted for by the unsatisfactory and uncomfortable accommodation we provide for our students. We acutely need a properly equipped, central building in which to carry out our work, and I sometimes wonder whether, if our need were made known, a public or private response would be stimulated to help us towards better premises. We are becoming more widely known and accepted and there is an increasing field of work among the general public and also among special sections such as the elderly and the youthful calling for attention, but we cannot attempt to cope with this work without improving facilities and assistance,” Mr Efford says.

Tutorial Enrolments Thirty-eight classes of the tutorial types were conducted during 1953 in the Canterbury university district. The total enrolment for- these classes was 1536. In 1952 there were 44 classes with 1319 students, and in 1951, 36 classes with 1237 students. These figures refer to the formal classes of the tutorial type only, and do not include the clubs, choir, prison lectures, public lectures, lectures to groups, lunch-hour groups in the Addington railway workshops and other workshops and factories. Fifteen of the classes were at least 18 lectures in length. The analysis of occupations shows that, of the men, 41 per cent, were skilled or unskilled workers. 20 per cent, were professional and managerial workers, and 12 per cent, office workers. Of the women, 66 per cent, were housewives, 12 per cent, were office workers, 5 per cent, nurses, 4 per cent, teachers and 4 per cent, manual workers. Some classes attracted particularly large enrolements this year—astronomy (106), the home: design for living (99), the motor-car (97), the preschool child and his needs (77), and several others had an enrolment nearly as high. “We do not aim necessarily at large numbers and in some cases such large numbers would make effective teaching impossible,” Mr Efford says. “In some types of class we deliberately limit the number enrolled in order to allow of better teaching and we have extended this practice in several cases this year. However, the class enrolments are an obvious indication of public interest.”