Night school supporters are not giving up on their fight to reinstate funding and are due to present a petition to Parliament.
About 800 supporters marched down Queen St on Saturday to protest against the cuts to 80 per cent of funding for Adult Community Education.
Campaign member Linda Melrose,
from Onehunga High School's community education programme, said the protesters "sent a really clear message that this is the wrong decision to make".
Supporters have been asked to put pressure on their local MPs while they await the outcome of the petition due to be presented by the end of the month.
The president of the Community Learning Association through Schools, Maryke Fordyce, said petitions were flowing in from around the country.
She said she only hoped the Government would listen and see the bigger picture.
Cuts to school-based funding have been the focus of protest this year but under the 2009 Budget arrangements polytechnics and universities would lose 50 per cent of funding in 2011, she said.
An informal survey conducted by the learning association found that at least 25 per cent of the 212 schools currently offering night classes would be closing because of the cuts but president of teachers union the PPTA Kate Gainsford fears the final numbers will be much higher.
She said that if the funding cut went ahead just three out of 11 Wellington schools currently offering adult community education programmes would continue to do so. In Dunedin it was likely there would be no night classes at all.
"The unintended consequence of this is playing out now; with upper decile schools in wealthy areas planning to continue courses on a user pays basis and other schools folding."
Mrs Gainsford said the less wealthy schools would be left to compete for the leftovers of the $3 million pool.
"This will be a disaster for those who use night classes as an affordable way to gain the skills and confidence to staircase into employment," she said. "It is clear that this was a hasty Budget decision and a slash and burn exercise, with no consultation. Politically the decision is confrontational, financially it's ill-advised and educationally it's unsound."
