Education unions

The three-way contest for Deputy General Secretary of the largest teachers union, the NUT, resulted in a major victory for the left. Kevin Courtney, the Camden NUT secretary and leading light in the Socialist Teachers’ Alliance (STA), was elected after an impressive campaign which maximised his support amongst activists and local branch officers of the union. In the final round of votes Courtney defeated the “Broadly Speaking” candidate Martin Reed by 20,848 votes to 18,236. The third candidate, Hazel Danson of the Campaign for a Democratic and Fighting Union (CDFU), won 8,064 first preference...

It would be better if the individuals and groups who define themselves as left in the Union could agree to support common candidates in national elections. It will be important in the period ahead to consolidate the small majority the left has gained on the national executive and avoid the prospect of Broadly Speaking regaining either the Executive or the GS or DGS positions. Just as important is the need to build a clearer, sharper, more determined left which acts collectively on the key issues facing members, particularly those which require us to mobilise members for action. It would have...

Local community campaigners in the Hyde Park district in Leeds recently occupied the site of a school building in an attempt to save it for their use. The school, Royal Park Primary, was closed five years ago against the will of a popular local campaign. There were two previous attempts by the local authority to close the school which were defeated by parents, school workers and local activists. During the campaign, in one of the most deprived areas in the city, the campaigners were able to demonstrate the building was extensively used by the local community including for English language...

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Strikers at Tower Hamlets College returned to work on Friday 25 September, after winning major concessions from the college. According to Tower Hamlets UCU branch secretary Richard McEwan, "There were no compulsory redundancies. We saved the mentorship scheme that has helped over 700 young people to grow in confidence and study at university. We saved over 300 Esol places, helping people to learn English and join the community. We stopped all the compulsory redundancies in admin, support and youth work. We stopped cuts to A level hours. We doubled the VR offer and we saved learning mentors who...

Management at Tower Hamlets College, in East London, have insisted that they must show a profit at all costs by the end of the financial year. So thirteen workers (equivalent to 6.75 full-time teaching posts) have been threatened with redundancy. These posts add up to a saving of just £300,000 for the college, which has £6,000,000 in reserves. Many staff have been pushed into taking voluntary redundancy — equivalent to 20 full-time teaching posts. The worst hit courses will be those most used by local people and school leavers: Hair and Beauty, IT, and most of all, ESOL (English for Speakers...

Leaflet for Thursday 3 September 2009.

UCU members at Tower Hamlets college, in East London, are on indefinite strike against cuts. The union reports: "Tower Hamlets College faces indefinite strike action from Thursday 27 August after eleventh hour talks failed to resolve the ongoing row over job losses and cuts to English language courses. Despite attempts from the UCU to negotiate with the college, the union said today that its members at Tower Hamlets have been left with no alternative but to walk out indefinitely. The strike action has been targeted to coincide with the first day of enrolment at the college. The union said...

Another front in the Vestas jobs battle has been opened by the involvement of Vestas Technology in a plan to transform almost all the Isle of Wight's schools into Academies (privatised schools receiving public money but run by their business sponsors). In a letter endorsing the Academies bid, Vestas Technology boss Rob Sauven says: "(We are) committed to helping raise educational standards on the Island and to supporting sustainable schools. We would in particular like to encourage the education curriculum to further students' understanding of the planet from the sustainability perspective and...

According to the Teacher Development Agency (a quango overseeing teacher recruitment and training), over 50% of all newly qualified teachers will have left the job within three years. And this does not reveal the real drop-out rate from teacher-training. Substantial numbers leave before completing their courses, and yet more finish training and then decide against a career in teaching. How do the government’s latest education proposals propose to deal with this? Bizarrely, they have decided to make it even more difficult to retain teachers and even more likely that people will decide to leave...