Category: FE

Further education stories

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Don’t give up the pensions fight

The government’s “final offer” is no improvement. There is no extra money on offer. The government still wants public sector workers to work longer, pay more and get less. They haven’t moved on core issues:

* Fifty percent rise in pension contributions.
* Normal pension age to rise to the state retirement age. Retirement at 68 for those 34 and under.
* Pensions indexed at CPI instead of RPI. A cut for all existing pensioners.

We agree with those union general secretaries who are against accepting this offer. We ask all union general secretaries, if it was right to strike against these proposals on November 30th how it can be right to accept them now? Ordinary trade union members have demonstrated their determination to resist these unfair and unnecessary changes; we call on our trade union leaders reject the Government’s bullying tactics and reject their unacceptable offer.

Alex Kenny – NUT Executive member (Inner London)
Andrew Baisley – Camden NUT branch secretary
Dave Harvey – NUT Executive member (Outer London)
Martin Powell-Davis – NUT Executive member (Inner London)
Mark Campbell – UCU Executive member
Liz Lawrence – UCU Executive member
Sean Vernell – UCU Executive member
Loraine Monk – UCU Executive member
Christine Vie – UCU Executive member
David Armstrong – UCU Executive member
Guy Stoate – UCU Executive member

Sign the statement here: http://bit.ly/sVyIla
View the signatories here: http://bit.ly/rJ8SGJ

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Jobs and Education – Regaining the trust of Young People

Placard From Student Protest - photocredit Neil Dorgan, Flickr

The publication of this campaigning pamphlet is very timely, with the guardian and LSE publising the interim results of their ‘reading the riots’ investigation, this pamphlet sets out the position of the FE and Adult Education Sector policy, and intertwines our policy with a coherent and well thought through analysis of the riots, the economic crisi, and the ways in which education can prove a transformative force in overcoming these crises, and building the society that we want to see.

You can find a pdf of the pamphlet here, and hard copies can be ordered through your branch committee.

Why not use it as the basis of a branch meeting, or set up a special college wide meeting with students and a local MP? A number of branches have already organised this, if you want any further ideas then get in touch and we can put you in touch with someone who has organised such a meeting already.

To quote from the introduction:

For those who work in further and adult education the civil unrest that erupted onto our streets in August 2011 was predictable. The abolition of the education maintenance allowance (EMA) and the raising of university fees confirmed the sense felt by many young people that the government had written off their futures. For many of our young adults there is a deep sense of anger, frustration and fear about their futures. This, in turn, has led some to feel alienated and distrustful of a society that fails to provide space for their concerns to be listened to and does not make them feel secure. Furthermore, the cuts in teaching and course provision

will accelerate the drive towards elitism in education, which will cascade throughout 14–19 education resulting in the narrowing and stratification of the curriculum offer.

The government’s response was as predictable as the reaction of those young people to their feelings of insecurity. All the old dogmas of ‘criminal classes’, ‘parental discipline’, ‘greed’, ‘feral underclass’ and ‘lack of values’ were used alongside mass arrests and imprisonment to regain order. These kinds of explanations and resorting to tactics which create fear will only deepen the sense of alienation that many young people feel.

We in UCU believe that the riots should be wake-up call to all those who work and run education services in Britain. As educationalists, we believe that further and adult education can play an essential part in helping win back the trust and respect of young people. However, for this to happen there must be an urgent reassessment of the role of further and adult education and how it is funded.

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N30 – Fantastic Day

 
Highlights of the SERTUC rally in london.
 
Just a quick note to say congratulations to all on a fantastic and historic day yesterday. Reports show very strong support for the strike in colleges and universities, and big turnouts for the local rallies where attendance exceeded all expectations – 4,000 in Bradford, 15,000 in Birmingham, 10,000 Leeds, 30,000 in Manchester and up to 50,000 in London. The list of monster rallies could go on. Schools, offices, colleges and universities were either closed or virtually deserted.
 
There were also walkouts by some electricians and construction workers at power stations and elsewhere, prison officers at Wakefield, and in places firefighters joined the rallies angry at not being included in the action.
 
Wherever the question of escalation and ‘name the day’ were raised, they got a fantastic reception because they match the huge anger that exists in the class, especially after the kick in the gut delivered by Osborne the day before the strike. Tomorrow’s NEC will be considering the outcome from yesterday’s strike and a report from the TPS meeting taking place today.
 
We did very well yesterday in getting a number of UCU Left supporters onto the various local and regional platforms, partly a testament to the roles we play in UCU but also to the prominence UCU, and UCU Left, has had within the labour movement in taking a lead in the fight over pensions.
 
The UCU Left leaflets and pamphlets also went down very well. Some supporters have now sold dozens of “Another education is possible” and in the wake of yesterday’s events we should re-double our efforts to get this very good publication into the hands of UCU members and other education workers’ and students’ hands as well.
  
In the wake of yesterday’s historic and transformative success what about organising ‘What Next’ meetings in your college or university jointly with other campus unions, students and others?
 
What about using the day as a springboard for a campaign against the HE White Paper where this has not got off the ground yet, involving students, links to campaigns emerging among academics, and others, perhaps a public meeting, teach-ins and so on?
 
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Another Education is Possible

“The challenges that we face in our colleges and universities are immense. These are likely to intensify as the recovery of the global economy falters and a plunge into a second recession is highly likely.

The attacks that we face are part and parcel of a supposed solution whereby austerity has been foisted on working class people rather than those who caused the crisis in the first place. We are looking to build the strongest and most united fight to defend jobs and education. But we also believe that another education is possible – one which is free, open to all and determined by a thirst for knowledge and learning and not the diktats of the market.”

UCU left has created a publication which touches on a wide variety of the issues facing further, adult and higher education today, it’s been available in hard copy since November 30th, and is available online as a Pdf here, and as and ePub here.