Adult Education
Page three, this last edition, tells of Adult Community Education services prevailing despite massive cuts to their funding. The Ukulele, Zumba dance, and Te Reo classes are growing in popularity as I write. As long as we have such commitment to higher learning among those with no formal qualification, who wish to gain experience necessary to qualify for university, we will show those who cut funding for the above courses, that they were very wrong and should be ashamed of their actions. There is also a photo of someone learning, or is it teaching pupils, to make scones. Very tasty outcome, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating! “Roll on” Wellington High School.
Ron Blair, Te Aro, (abridged).

Wellywood
More on Wellywood, (19 May), lists some ideas proposed for a sign on the hillside above the Cobham Drive/Calabar Road roundabout. We would like to suggest a permanent, and ecologically significant, welcome to people arriving at, or going to, the airport. It would involve replacing the gorse on those slopes with locally appropriate, eco-sourced, native plants. What better, and more visually attractive, sight could there be, than a self-sustaining forest of Wellington’s native coastal plants above this busy intersection and airport? Furthermore, by establishing such a native forest, Wellington Airport would he helping to absorb some of the enormous volume of CO2 emissions from its operations. We would all be winners.
J Chris Horne and Barbara Mitcalfe, Northland and Kelburn.

University entrance
News is that some of our universities will are not able to take in new students because they are full. This is unfortunate, but it is part caused by the pressure on the universities from current rules giving priorities to ethnic selection, and the  levels of skill needed in the case of Maori; to the cost of the European candidates A historic legal  case in America some years ago involved a student MR BAKKE who was refused entry in California to  university, because   places were allocated on a race based formula,  Mr Bakke   took his case to the US Supreme Court and famously, won,   based on evidence that he had been affected by reverse discrimination. The supreme court concluded he could not gain entry to the university because he was European American, and he had been excluded by a formula that broke the USA constitution. Howard Ball wrote a book in 2000 on the case. It is likely that reverse discrimination could be claimed in NZ, if kiwis of European origin are unable to gain access to our universities because places are being held for Maori even although they have not achieved the same standards.
C harris, wadestown.

More loose change
Thank you for continuing to cover the fare issues. However, GW transport officer Brian Baxter narrows the debate to one of increased rates or higher fares.  The choice is wider than that. Wellington City Council provides “free” car parking at weekends, and that space on the road costs a lot in foregone revenue - in fact a lot more than the proposed new fare for the inner city (CBD) section.  So why not make a swap [and provide free CBD buses].  It might end the gridlock that occurs every weekend, as drivers circle round and round looking for that vacant “free” car park. And, if more people paid a fare to get into town, encouraged by the free connection in the CBD, there might be no net change to fare revenue.
Paul Bruce, Brooklyn
(abridged).