Education For Adults

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29799, 16 April 1962, Page 12

Education For Adults

Today the Workers’ Educational Association will begin its forty-eighth year of classes in Christchurch. In spite of the enormous expansion of other educational facilities, the association’s importance to the community is probably greater than ever before. Particularly since the Second World War the demands on each person’s intellectual resources merely for every-day living have increased far more than most New Zealanders may realise. An educational and cultural background that only a few years ago might have sufficed in all but exceptional circumstances nowadays lacks essential aids to success and enjoyment. One way—perhaps the most embarrassing—in which adult shortcomings can be revealed is through childish inquiries about scientific or political developments. Ideally, democracy is based upon every citizen’s understanding of even the most complicated issues of government. If such issues concern matters of which one's schoolmasters were themselves ignorant, how can understanding be acquired, except through additional education? The W.E.A. provides convenient and inexpensive channels for an extraordinary variety of

knowledge. Because it brings together a crosssection of adult society, all with a common aim, it fosters friendships, encourages cultural appreciation, and stimulates thought. What its achievements want in academic depth is more than offset by the breadth of scope that

characterises its programmes. It is a window on a world of learning from which many older people might otherwise be turned by their own diffidence or shyness. It transforms education into a hobby, pleasurable and therefore doubly rewarding. It propagates international sympathies through language and other studies. In more mundane fields, it helps to raise standards of domestic housekeeping, and to exploit tradesmanlike aptitudes. Because many of its lecturers are also university teachers, it contributes towards the integration of university and civic activities. But most important of all is its impact upon the individual scholar who. irrespective of age or lost opportunities, gains the material for building a fuller, richer, and more satisfying life, in which cultural horizons are expanded and the complexities of progress are at least partly comprehended.