In an interview give to the Guardian, the City Lit principal and chief executive Peter Davis expresses his concerns about the widening inequalities in access of adult education (AE)services the expected 40% governmental cut in funding will cause.
As a person at the younger and no less under-represented part of the age spectrum, I have personally felt that adult education has provided me much more than just fanciful distractions from the daily grind. Although it need to be acknowledged that a certain percentage of AE patrons are not in desperate need of re-training in order to earn a living from the skilled gained at evening classes. If this is a problem then surely the solution is not to cut back service but to improve access to those in more urgent need, ie the under-/un-employed, isolated, and those who would benefit interactions within a social community etc.
If governmental departments, elected councils and governing political parties are required to prove their positive impacts to their citizens in order to secure funding I wonder how many would still exist.
Full article at: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/oct/12/adult-education-cuts
