Pre-school education

On Thursday 19 April, a colourful and noisy protest of 250 women, children and men, plus teddy bears and balloons took place in opposition to cuts in Sure Start nursery care provision in Liverpool. The council is planning to cut close 10 of 26 Sure Start centres. This will mean job cuts as well as the devastation of childcare services people rely on. Private nurseries are over subscribed so many parent are worried they cannot continue to work or study. The protest took place at the consultation meeting called by Liverpool council — 100 people went inside to present a petition while the rest...

A report by a think tank linked to the Lib Dems has suggested that parents who pass a parenting test should be paid more in Child Benefit. Those who can show they have completed a "five-a-day" programme - reading with their child for 15 minutes, playing for 10 minutes, talking with the television off for 20 minutes, giving praise and providing a nutritious diet - should it suggests receive extra money on top of their Child Benefit. CentreForum which produced the report describes itself as "an independent, liberal think tank" but in reality has close links to Lib Dem members of the Government...

Stubbornness wins Introduction On Tuesday 8 March 1994, the labour council in Islington, North London, voted to reopen Springdale nursery. This was the result of over 15 months’ campaigning against the closure of the nursery. Victories against cuts are rare enough these days to make this one worth study. It is a small victory: the money involved is only about 0.1 per cent of the council’s budget. To defeat the far bigger cuts being pushed through by councils and central government, we will need a much bigger scale of action. But some basic principles hold good for small struggles and for large...

An activist from Friends of Hackney Nurseries spoke to Solidarity Hackney is relatively well-endowed with nursery places. A lot of that is to do with struggles that were fought and won in the 1970s and 80s by feminists and community activists, who set up community nurseries and got funding for them. Since then it’s been a constant struggle to defend those gains. Our campaign, Friends of Hackney Nurseries, has reactivated recently in response to big cuts planned by the Learning Trust (LT). The LT is the body that looks after education for Hackney Council, which is convenient for them, as it...