Letter-box learning

Press, 28 January 1988, Page 32

Letter-box learning

C is a 26-year-old farmer living in a small isolated community in the North Island. His school days were not happy ones — he disliked school intensely and was always in special classes. Not surprisingly he felt himself to be an educational failure and that his

job opportunities and life were limited. As a young man C wanted to change this but living as he did in the country there were no evening classes available to him. Then he heard about the New Zealand Correspondence School. He enrolled with the School as a part-time adult student on an individualised programme, and a new chapter opened in his life. Learning now excites him and he has become so enthused by his studies that after a hard day on the farm he does several hours schoolwork each evening, and even plans to give up cricket this summer to devote more time to study. His sights are now set on passing School Certificate English. C is just one of ten thousand adults aged from 15 to 80 scattered throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand, on farms and in cities and towns, who are taking advantage of the opportunity the correspondence school offers them to have a second chance at education and to continue to learn. Among its students are many who live on farms, who work at sea or''whose hours of work, medical condition, age, or domestic commitments do not permit attendance at regular classes. For these the correspondent school, which provides lessons by post, offers the only chance of continuing education. And why do they do it? For many the main motivation for study is to help them in their work or to improve their qualifications.

Each year the school helps large numbers of adults gain School Certificate, Sixth Form Certificate, University Bursary and TCB qualifications. Others, have found as adults a new motivation and desire to learn, and now wish to fill in gaps in their knowledge. Some are grateful for the chance to take up a subject that has long interested them, while others just wish to keep their minds active. Typical of the comments received from enrolling students are these: “I left school to get a job to help my family out. Now I would really like to get some qualifications.” “I am studying mainly because I like studying and learning and am afraid of finding my horizons narrowing if I don’t.” “I am in the workforce and want to carry on my education on a part-time basis working at my own speed in my own time.” Whether they are studying art or accounting, science or Spanish, economics or embroidery, or any of the other sixty subjects that can be studied through the School, what the Cambodian refugee, the solo parent, the young unemployed school leaver, the suburban or rural housewife and the retired have in common, is the desire for self-improvement through education. Some students enrol for a year, achieve their goal and move on. For others, the sending off of their

enrolment form is just the beginning of a long rewarding association with the school over a period of years. Such a student is A, a housewife living in a small North Island town. She enrolled to do remedial mathematics and has gradually worked through the different levels of mathematics until this year she is sitting the University Bursary maths with statistics exam. Correspondence school students are as varied as the subjects they study, but many do not have the same access to community educational facilities as their fellow New Zealanders. M for instance is a young solo mother with pre-school children, living in suburban Wellington. As she is not able to leave the children to go off to classes or pay someone to come in and look after them, having her typing, shorthand and English lessons come through the post provides an ideal way for her to acquire the skills and qualifications which will enable her to do office work when her children are older. Letter box learning is providing the means too, for P to gain the recognisable qualifications she feels she needs for a future return to the “paid workforce.” As a wife, mother and farmer living in a rural area, she would not have been able to study the Sixth Form Certificate English and accounting courses she has this year, without the help of the correspondence school.

At 40 J could only look back on poor health and a difficult background which limited his achievements. His school life, was marked by chronic truancy. Physical disabilities caused him to be singled out at school for teasing and frequent bullying. Not surprisingly • he hated school and did poorly there. Later in life, J felt that he had missed out, so enrolled at the correspondence school as an adult student. He felt that this would eventually provide him with the opportunity to move from dependence on an invalids benefit to employment of some kind. J started with a mixed course of Form 3 and 4 level and moved on to Form 5 work. Next year J will become a full-time student working on five School Certificate subjects. He now feels he has sometime to offer and that the qualifications he is working towards will help him to do this. With the opportunity it provides them to study in their own home, in their time and at their own pace, the correspondence school provides its students with the flexibility that enables them to build study into what for many is a very busy lifestyle full of other commitments. It also enables adults who for whatever reason are not able, or do not wish to attend regular classes, to continue their education. The one-to-one relationship students have with their tutors ensures that they have individual

attention to their needs, and often leads to the establishment of a warm student-teacher relationship. Now that its records have been computerised the Correspondence School is confident that it can offer an even better service to its students.