Hagley Adult Literacy Centre (HALC) celebrated its thirtieth birthday in August with an open day for learners and the wider community at their Champion Street Campus in Ōtautahi. Over their 30-year history, the Centre has changed many lives for the better as people seek out new skills to enable them to pursue a greater range of life opportunities.

It was 1994 when the Education and Training Support Agency approached Hagley College to develop a proposal for a literacy and numeracy training programme for unemployed adults. Once the formalities were complete, the College established the Hagley Learning Centre in one of the cottages on the College Campus and 18 students were enrolled to start their learning journey. Today the Centre has more than 700 learners and operates from seven hubs around the city, as well as the main centre on Champion Street.

HALC continued operating from Hagley College Campus for its first 25 years, but during a campus rebuild they relocated to the Champion Street site. The team is looking forward to being back at Hagley in 2025, once site renovations are complete.

Joanna Fox has been the manager of HALC for the past 11 years and was a tutor at the school prior to that. She says it has been rewarding to see the growth of the Centre over the years but more importantly, to know that people have changed their lives because of the opportunities HALC provides.

“Our Workplace Literacy and Numeracy programmes offer one-onone coaching, and we see the biggest gains in these learners in the shortest times. Often these learners have not been supported in previous learning journeys and coming to us opens their eyes to what can be achieved. Seeing their confidence and belief in themselves grow is a highlight for me,” Joanna says.

“I also feel inspired when I see some of our migrant learners using their newfound skills to gain qualifications and move into more satisfying employment opportunities that are better suited to their skill base and previous training.”

HALC also offers Literacy Pathways for Youths aged 16 to 20 years old, First Steps Literacy and Numeracy courses for people with intellectual impairments, community-based literacy and numeracy programmes in English for Speakers of Other Languages, and Heavy Truck Learner Licence Class 2 training. The Centre currently has 29 staff and more than 50 volunteers who, Joanna says, are “amazing and committed”.

“We have a great range of volunteers who contribute their time and come from a wide range of backgrounds. The diversity in our staff, learners and the courses we offer contributes to our success and is one of the things we are celebrating this year.”

There’s a wide range of reasons why learners join the HALC Literacy Pathways Courses. Some come for a short time to complete NCEA Level 1 and others come for longer as they seek new skills to get employment and re-engage with the community. All learners are on an individual learning plan and are welcome to stay for as long as needed to achieve their goals.

Many learners have spent years in refugee camps prior to coming to New Zealand and need to improve their English for everyday life, and some move on to another ACE provider course once they have achieved their goals at HALC. Learners on the Literacy and Numeracy Pathways courses in the community complete a minimum of six hours learning each week and a maximum of 20 hours.

Joanna says those on the Youth Literacy Pathways course attend the HALC course for 20 hours a week for up to a year, after which they are often at the stage where they can transition back to mainstream school, or on to further tertiary study, or into the workforce.

“Many learners in the youth class stopped school during COVID and disengaged from learning completely. Others are neurodiverse learners requiring more individual attention. We have a maximum of 10 students in class with one tutor, one assistant and generally a volunteer, so they receive one-on-one attention.”

HALC also runs ACE courses at Hagley in the evenings which allows adult former refugees and migrants to attend courses twice a week while their children attend study support for primary and secondary students. On offer are courses including cooking, learner driver’s licence, basic computing skills, beginner English and conversation classes.

“These classes work well and seeing learner confidence grow and lives change is a highlight for our team. We are successful for learners because we take time and treat everyone as an individual. We don’t all learn the same way and our tutoring acknowledges this. Often learners just need one small success to gain confidence and take steps to change their lives. Many haven’t experienced this in the traditional school system and that’s where we can make a difference.”

During Joanna’s 11 years at the helm, she says highlights have included receiving the Dyslexia Friendly Qualmark that recognises and acknowledges the skills of the team, the learner success for people who have previously had negative experiences within the mainstream system, and receiving an award at the 2023 ACE Sector Conference for Community Based Programme of the Year.

Courses at HALC are free for adult learners who are New Zealand citizens or New Zealand residents. Here’s to the next 30 years!