About Us

For 50 years, Rutherford Community Education has provided high quality short courses and weekend workshops to adults of diverse age and ethnicities. With over 200 courses, we offer affordable, informal and formal learning to support our students in acquiring new knowledge and practical skills, develop creativity and wellbeing.

Enrolments

Enrolments may be made by post, phone, in person or online. You are encouraged to make use of our secure website to select, register and pay for your course. 

Fees

Fees must be paid in full at the time of enrolment; fees are GST inclusive. Please note that we do not accept cash payments.

Course Cancellations

If minimum numbers are not obtained before the course start date, students will be notified of the cancellation via email and SMS. We attempt to notify students of course cancellations at least 2 or 3 days before the start date.

Subsidies and Assistance

A 10% discount applies for senior citizens (65+) and those with a Community Services card. Those receiving a benefit administered by WINZ may be entitled to a Training Incentive Allowance: contact your Income Support Office. If you have special needs please contact us for assistance.

Waiting lists

Waiting lists operate for filled classes. You will be contacted if a place becomes available. Transfers may be arranged so that students study at an appropriate level. All transfers must be discussed with the staff.

Refunds

If a class has insufficient enrolments, we will advise you and a full refund will be given or a transfer to another class may be suggested.

If you are unable to attend a course and provide at least 3 working days notice before the course starts, we will refund the course fee in the full amount. Refunds or transfers will not be given for withdrawals within 3 working days of the class start, or once a class has started.

All refunds will be processed via PayStation and returned to the card used for the original payment of fees.

Centre's Policies

our centre operates as a department of Rutherford College. Schools implement, as part of their charters, policies on sexual harassment, smoking, drugs and alcohol. All schools are SMOKE and VAPE  FREE. Schools take every precaution to comply with the Health and Safety in Employment Act and the Privacy Act.

Certificates

Attendance Certificates can be provided on request if the student has been present for 80% of the course.

Programme Alterations

In unforeseen circumstances, we reserve the right to change the advertised programme and/or tutor. Every effort will be made to inform enrollees.

Publicity

Photographs taken of classes in progress are intended for publicity purposes only.

Parking

Parking is available in the main car park on weekends and evenings only, although this can be limited. Some parking spaces are also available at the back of the school (accessed via Toru Street).

Parking is not permitted in gateways or on grassed areas. Vehicles that block access or are incorrectly parked may be towed away.

Privacy Policy  

On enrolment, we collect personal information from you, including your:

• name
• contact details (phone/email/address)
• ethnicity, gender, level of education and age group 
• billing or purchase information. 

Please note: If you choose to pay for courses using A2A, no record of your bank details is stored on our file. If you choose to pay for courses with a credit/debit card, PayStation, the secure online payment company we use, stores partial details of your credit card with us. We do not provide or do not store full details on our system.

We collect your personal information to assist us in providing statistical information to the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) about learners who are attending our courses, their eligibility to be subsidised by the New Zealand Government and to ensure only NZ residents are attending courses.

Besides our staff and the TEC, your information is not shared with anyone else. We keep your information safe for 7 years by storing it in encrypted files and only allowing authorised staff to access it. After 7 years, if you are no longer attending courses your information is removed from our database. 

You have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong. If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information or to have it corrected, please contact us.