ADULT EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26773, 17 May 1948, Page 4

ADULT EDUCATION

IMPORTANCE OF W.E.A. CHANGED FIELD OF WORK The Workers’ Educational Association had now a great responsibility in keeping active the organisations engaged in adult education, and in preventing any bureaucracy from influencing the movement, .said the, president, Mr George Manning, at the annual conference of the association at Dunedin on Saturday. Referring to the increase in Government grants, which for the year had reached £50,000, compared with £4500 for 1936, Mr Manning said the Government appreciated the value of adult education in the community if the present way of living were to be retained and improved upon. Mr Manning said the recently-estab-lished New Zealand Adult Education Council, with its regional councils in the provinces, was now participating in the field in which the W.E.A. had previously been the sole organising body. This had resulted in the number of classified W.E.A. students dropping from about 7500 *to 4500. The W.E.A. would have to work in new fields, but the large towns at least offered opportunities for progress in its activities. The International Workers Educational Association, of which New Zealand was a member, was endeavouring to set up residential colleges in each country represented, so that students could be exchanged, Mr Manning added. Last year a summer school was held in Britain, when students had been exchanged among Czechoslovakia, Sweden and Britain.