Adult reading scheme seeks support

Press, 14 September 1981, Page 10

Adult reading scheme seeks support

The financing of next year’s programme was the biggest problem facing Christchurch volunteers teaching adults to read, their co-ordinator, Mrs Barbara Petre, said. The Christchurch programme began in 1977 with 14 tutors helping a similar number of students, and now there are 150 tutors helping 120 students. However, the funds available for the work have not increased accordingly. The programme is run under the auspices of the Canterbury Workers’ Educational Association. It is one of 90 adult-reading schemes throughout New Zealand. Although the size of the programme has increased nine-fold, the Government grant has only been adjusted according to the rate of inflation.

“I am having to court and woo the public, y service organisations, and charities to raise money instead of doing what I should be doing, helping- tutors,” Mrs Petre said. She was paid a jialf-salary by the Education Department through the Christchurch Polytechic. A $2OOO grant from the Lottery Board and $5OO in donations from trade unions had kept the programme solvent this year. "The worst problem we face is where we will get the money for next year’s budget,” Mrs Petre said. The Education Department had “fobbed off” requests to incorporate adult reading assistance programmes in the Government education service. “Its policy is to put more money and teachers into reading programmes in schools,” shb said. That approach did nothing for the estimated 100,090 adults in New Zealand who had reading difficulties, and

no matter how the teaching service was improved it was likely that their children would have reading problems. “It is a vicious circle,” Mrs Petre said. A big proportion of the adults who were involved in the programme were concerned about not being able to help their children to read. “Most of them have come from families in which the parents had the same problem,” Mrs Petre said. The Christchuch programme is now based in its own office at 72 Gloucester Street. “It is a great improvement on the bookshelf we had at the Workers’ Educational Association,” Mrs Petre said. The next step would be to form regional adult reading associations which would support small, local schemes. A national body to act as a pressure group was also being planned. “We realise that we need to have political clout to get what we want,” Mrs Petre said.