Last year the UK Centenary Commission on Adult Education published their report, “A Permanent Necessity…”.

They focused on 6 areas:  

• framing and delivering a national ambition
• ensuring basic skills
• fostering community, democracy and dialogue
• promoting creativity, innovation and informal learning
• securing individual learning and wellbeing
• attending to the world of work.

Their first recommendation is as follows:

In February this year, Adult Learning Australia, in partnership with RMIT and the Australian Learning Cities Network 26, organised a Smart Learning Cities Forum.

The forum examined Smart City developments and linkages with Learning City approaches.

UNESCO defines a learning city as a city that:

By Bernice Lepper, Manager, C.O. REAP
At the end of last year we celebrated 40 years of providing educational opportunities for rural people. At our afternoon tea for invited guests we reflected on REAP’s history then proceeded to deposit a time capsule and plant a tree to mark the occasion.

Looking back, we found that we have been a flexible and nimble organisation, changing in response to community needs and government funding priorities.

The Wairarapa Community Centre Trust’s mission statement is ‘Empowering our community to be resilient and to work together to meet needs as they arise’; or as Manager Beverley Jack puts it, “we want to empower and connect our community, sharing knowledge and working together so that our whole community becomes aware of what is actually happening in our community.”