Further Education

Issues in further and adult education

Support the strike at Tower Hamlets college!

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...

Tower Hamlets fights ESOL cuts

Another half-day strike is set for the afternoon of Thursday 9 July against the cuts to the teaching of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) in Tower Hamlets, east London. Demonstrators will march to the London Assembly to lobby the London mayor Boris Johnson. The cuts initially proposed by new principal Michael Farley would lead to ESOL teaching being cut in half. 50% of students would lose classes, and up to 60 teachers lose their jobs. The fightback against this so far has been inspiring, involving demos, walkouts, strikes, students and mobilisation of the community. That this is...

National student demonstration 25 February

The national student demonstration for free education on 25 February is being supported by NUS Women's Campaign, NUS LGBT campaign, twenty student unions and activists across the country. It will be attended by many hundreds if not thousands of student activists. In the year that the cap on top-up fees could be lifted, this action could not be more important - so bring a delegation from your college or university! For more information, including about transport, or for model publicity, email studentdemo2009@gmail.com For more see the website www.studentdemo2009.org.uk For the Facebook event...

Free education: demonstrate in 2009!

A coalition of student activists, in a campaign initiated by Education Not for Sale, is planning to organise a demonstration at the start of 2009 against all fees and for a living grant. The demands are: * No raising of the cap on top-up fees; halt and reverse the growth in international students’ fees; abolish all fees in higher education and further education – free education for all; * A living grant for every student over 16 — at least £150 a week; and a living wage for nursing and other students who have to work as part of their course; * Stop and reverse marketisation in our schools...

The Treason Of The Intellectuals

The Treason Of The Intellectuals Bookless, you have the one sweet narrow time, Can know only your own brief hungry place, Live in a dark slow-burning carapace A wild, raw-minded unexamined mime. The book-rich too are held in time's tight rime To one-beat sentience, yet may embrace Wide times and distant living, know the race, See out beyond the banked effluvial grime. So schooled folk say, with pride. Then tell me why, In every age and place, the book-proud clerk Colludes to rob and pen in the lightless sty Millions condemned to half-life in the dark? As dog to primal hunter, clerk to chief...

French college students' and teachers' strike hangs in the balance

In France, and especially in the Parisian region, students and teachers are continuing a huge strike against the Sarkozy government’s planned attacks on education. Xavier Darcos, the education minister, has announced 11,200 job cuts in education to be implemented from this September, and a further 80,000 to be implemented by 2012. The reforms will introduce new working contracts for teachers, making their jobs more precarious and worse-paid; vocational courses are being cut and class sizes significantly increased. In response to these reforms, which threaten to demolish state education, and...

JCR document on lycée interventions

On Our Work in the Lycées – from the JCR's 2008 Congress Second Discussion Bulletin
[NB – a lycée is the rough equivalent of an FE college – students attend from the age of 15-16, and stay on for 3 years, occasionally more depending on the course]

A youth organisation must be present in all three...

Education for Freedom

Forty activists attended Education Not for Sale’ s “Education for Freedom” dayschool at the University of East London on Sunday 21 October. There was a practical session to plan ENS’ s activity for the period ahead, as well as a very useful forum on the campaign to defend NUS democracy (which three people from the SWP/Respect, one person from the CPGB and several extra non-aligned activists also attended). But the main focus of the day was on discussing ideas around education in depth — something which rarely happens in the student movement. So low is the level of political culture at present...

Don’t privatise further education!

by Colin Waugh 674,700 Work-based learning and community education places have been lost through government funding changes in 2005-06. The Government has been warned that “Train to Gain” could become a re-run of the “disastrous demand-led” policies of the 1990s, by creating pressure on colleges to produce for employers as many qualified staff as cheaply as possible. Further, research carried out for the Learning Skills Council on government programmes aimed at getting more adults to return to learning via further education has concluded (January 2007) that: “Few adults without a qualification...

ESOL fightback and Adult Education cuts

A thousand lecturers and students gathered at parliament at the end of February to lobby MPs over plans to restrict access to free English language courses. Under government proposals asylum seekers over the age of 19 will no longer be entitled to free ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) lessons. From September, this entitlement will be restricted to young people and those given permanent leave to remain in the UK who are receiving unemployment or income-based benefits. Other migrant students will be required to pay up to half the cost of their courses. More than 140 MPs have signed...

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