Major boost for adult literacy and numeracy

18 July 2005
Ministry of Education, NZQA, TEC

An extra $46 million over four years is to be invested in a Learning for Living package that will result in more adult New Zealanders accessing literacy, numeracy and language programmes, Education Minister Trevor Mallard announced today.

"This extra investment stems from funding shifts resulting from reviews of tertiary education provision announced today.

"This money will be used to expand the Adult Literacy Learning Pool and Workplace Literacy funds to ensure that more good education projects get off the ground. Last year for the first time, the number of good applications for funding in these areas exceeded the money available.

"The extra funding announced today will begin in January 2006, and includes extra for family literacy programmes. It is in addition to the $5 million over four years announced last week which will further build quality and capability in foundation learning provision to make sure the education is effective for the adults taking part.

"This is good news for employers and communities as it will ensure more people can have access in their workplace to learning basic reading, counting and language skills that will not only help them in their jobs, but also improve the quality of their lives.

"This new funding will be used to directly target people with low literacy, language and numeracy skills who are not currently accessing learning programmes.

"Providing more support for high quality community and work-based literacy programmes is a further example of the government’s commitment to shift tertiary education funding to areas of greater relevance – such as adult literacy, language and numeracy – where additional investment can make a real difference," said Trevor Mallard.

Other review announcements from today are at www.beehive.govt.nz/mallard or www.tec.govt.nz