With the fast-approching nuclear Armageddon we were promised in the 1980s I mucked around at school. What was the point, I thought. A higher education wasn't going to do much to help me  scavenge abandoned shopping malls for food during a nuclear winter should I survive the initial exchange of missiles, I thought. So I wagged Chemistry first, then English, then just about everything else.

By decade's end, and still with no missiles on the horizon, I began to gather my thoughts. Since leaving school I'd been fired from five dishwashing jobs in the space of a year. I was at the mercy of my own lack of enthusiasm for industrial detergent and an economic downturn. How did I let this happen? Oh, yeah ...

Humbly I trooped up to Victoria University's registry, showed them my (not-so-impressive) secondary grades and asked if there was any chance I could enroll. Half expecting to be directed back out the door, I was given a smile, advised to do a couple of night classes and come back. Thanks to the adult and community education (ACE) programme at Wellington High School I was able to embark on fruitful tertiary study, saving myself from myself and building a rewarding career in the process.

I now fear for those scores of people who find themselves in a similar position to the one I found. This government's axing of 80% of ACE funding could now spell its demise. The ACE programme is essential to up-skilling our workforce and "smartening" our economy - pivotal in troubled times. So much for investing in infrastructure to guide us out of recession. The government's destruction of ACE is short-sighted, deplorable and just plain dumb.