Newspaper Article – Helping the community realise its resources

Helping the community realise its resources

By staff reporter Mary Hollywood

It is five years old this year, and like most five year olds it has suffered growing pains, been misunderstood and rebuked. But, like its human counterparts, the Hawke’s Bay Community College has kept on growing and developing.

To prompt the short memories, the college began classes in February 1975.

From those small beginnings the college has developed and flourished to a point, today, where it must meet all the requirements of a community college as defined in the Education Act and more.

The college has had its critics, it still has.

Despite its many full time trade and vocational courses, its recreational, arts and crafts programmes and seminars and classes, some people call for structured and defined courses set rigidly in terms one, two or three.

The need for this type of “annual” syllabus might have had support in the college’s earlier years, when the public generally was not aware of the host of activities available through the facility.

Today it is surely not necessary for a variety of reasons.

The primary reason, according to the college’s director, Dr John Harre, is that the college today is facilitator, helping people recognise and use the resources and talents available in their own groups and localities.

“More often today we discuss subjects with individuals and members of groups in the community and help them resolve their needs,” he says.

“These discussions sometimes lead to us producing a course but, at other times, it leads to producing or facilitating another sort of community activity.

“When the college first opened we saw the need to service vocational programmes and the main growth of numbers was in that field.

“But now the vocational programme has levelled off and community education subjects show the greatest growth.”

STILL DEVELOPING

Dr Harre says that on the vocational side, the college is still developing more courses and using more people.

“In the community we have consolidated and diversified to meet the needs of small communities, both urban and rural; neighbourhoods within cities and even isolated settlements.” He says.

“At the level of small community needs there are often resources available [available] close at hand. Ideas are what they need, then the community can take more autonomy and initiative in solving its own needs”.

In past years when looking at day and evening classes the college staff tried to decide what people wanted. The courses were advertised but often few people turned up.

“Now we have placed the emphasis on what people say they want,” Dr Harre says.

“If all community education evolved around professional tutors we would soon run out of money. Our role is to facilitate the community so they can do their own thing.”

The college’s relatively small team of tutors has managed to generate wide interest throughout Hawke’s Bay.

The drop-in centre at Tamatea is one catalyst for many and varied courses, discussions and programmes.

“Some activities are educational in the true sense of the word others are almost therapeutic,” says Dr Harre.

“They are exercises in communication where a flow of people socialise and explore together their needs.

“In these cases the college is motivating and activating, yet not actually ‘running’ the course.”

In the vocational courses at the college there is a need to cover a work programme, a need to go beyond basics but with in-service training courses and in more general community needs the amount of education required is quite small.

FARM WELDING

Dr Harre said that in subjects like farm welding the courses ran for 10 to 30 weeks with just a couple of hours tuition each evening.

“Then we looked at the market. The demand was there for on[one] full day’s training; eight intensive hours and finish. The attendance went up. Farmers were prepared to give up a day but not to come into town for a couple of hours each week after a busy day’s work.

“The same applies now in the arts and craft department. We have extended courses. We have an open-studio system where people can come in and use the equipment and materials with intermittent training sessions.

“During the first week or so each year we run intensive sessions. After that the students reach their own levels of achievement with no embarrassment over their slow progress or difficulties.”

While the criticism continues, the sheer weight of numbers attending the college each year must be proof of its increasing success.

At present 4000 to 5000 “students” have done something through the college each year.

Some of these activities, seminars and courses have been off-campus, and this trend is increasing.

“Courses which need workshops or laboratories have to ‘happen’ here and sometimes we need to bring people together at the college to get sufficient numbers,” Dr Harre says.

“At other times people just like coming in here; they like the atmosphere.”

The college now has an entitlement of 50 tutors. At present it has 40 fulltime and another 10 on part time.

“But in fact when we include those tutors who are not staff professionals we would have something like 200 tutors working in any one year.”

Another 40 people form the support staff at the college, including technicians, gardeners and administration staff. The annual salary bill is about $1 million.

Dr Harre is convinced the college’s move into community education should extend even further to include a wider variety of skills.

“We should be helping people form good work habits, manipulative skills, care of equipment and attitudes to good work patterns,” he says.

“We should be leading them towards self sufficiency by teaching survival skills.

“I believe effective and productive work leads to a happy home life. Better orientated people support the economy; they are not bored and so vandalism becomes less prevalent and police work is reduced.

“Go further and teach leisure skills and this must also affect the community’s economy. I see an interconnection between all these things.”

Photo caption – JUST one of the off-campus activities born from an idea known to a member of the college staff. Each week this group meets at the Drop-in-Centre at Tamatea to learn the finer points of patchwork and quilting. Quiltmaking expert and instructor Mrs Jennifer Were (right) is on hand to discuss patterns and sizes with Mrs J. Dever.