Students

Education under capitalism is organised for one purpose – to prepare the next generation of workers for a life of exploitation and to ‘update the skills’ of the current ones according to the needs of the labour market. We are conditioned to absorb information and not question it or the world around us.

Colin Waugh has worked in adult education for more than 25 years and will be talking about his recently published account of the Plebs League – the founding movement inspired by the notion that the working classes should produce their own thinkers and organisers!

The Plebs League eventually became a national movement, providing what was called independent working-class education (IWCE). Later it was called the National Council of Labour Colleges. Through this movement, which was still functioning in 1964, tens of thousands of working-class people both taught and learnt.

The basic aim behind IWCE was that the working class should produce its own thinkers and organisers. The autobiographies and reminiscences of many labour movement leaders in the 1930s, 40s and 50s refer to the Plebs League and the Ruskin strike. In contrast, few academic historians have paid attention to these initiatives. Most histories of adult education, for example, assume that what counts is the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA). They either ignore IWCE altogether or see it as an obstacle that briefly hampered the WEA.

Facebook event here: http://www.facebook.com/events/371959769497170/