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#Demo 2012: Stop Tory attacks on education

October 27, 2012 By 1 Comment

On 21 November, thousands of students will march in London to say no to cuts, fees and privatisation.

Since the Con-Dem government came to power, education has been under constant attack. Tuition fees were tripled to £9k a year, EMA was scrapped and now schools and universities are being sold off to private companies.

On October 20th, 150, 000 workers marched in London demanding an end to cuts.

#Demo2012 on November 21st is our chance to strike back.

The trashing of Tory party HQ at Millbank, the occupations and education assemblies showed how we become stronger when we unite and fight. The victory of the Quebec students’ strike proves that militant struggle is the best way to defeat government attacks.

The student movement needs to reorganise and create the weapons necessary to win. This means uniting the different campaigns like EAN, NCAFC and YFJ into a single, democratic federation which fights for a general strike to stop the cuts.

A big demonstration on N21 will send Cameron’s toffs the message that students won’t lie down and watch our universities privatised and a generation of young people denied access to real education.

All out to defend education on N21 – Scrap fees & cuts, bring back EMA – Build a general strike to stop the cuts!

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Fight racist deportations at London Met

September 3, 2012 By 1 Comment

(pic: Soren Goard)

Thousands of students have been given until December 1 to find a new university place or face being rounded up and deported from the UK.

Around 2,600 non-EU students have had their education thrown into jeopardy by the decision of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) to strip London Metropolitan University of its right to issue visas to students from abroad.

The decision means the students are unable to renew their visas or continue their studies past September. Both the Students’ Union and UCU branch condemned the move.

The government defended its decision by claiming ‘serious systemic failure’ meant that ‘allowing London Met to continue to sponsor and teach international students was not an option.’

The lecturers’ union, UCU, blames an incompetent management and racist government policies. For many universities, foreign students are treated as a cash-cow. They are charged much higher fees than UK students, and their dependence on the University for visas means an insecure existence.

In 2010-11 15 per cent of London Met’s income came from foreign students.

Unsurprisingly then, that the pro-fees university bosses’ organisation Universities UK condemned the decision. But their fear that it will put off foreign students is motivated more by their reliance on fees from these students than a defence of equal access to education.

Privatisation

For the overpaid pen-pushers sat in Vice-chancellor offices up and down the country, foreign students are central to new funding plans which will see many universities enter ‘partnerships’ or ‘service sharing’ schemes with private contractors.

In effect this will see student loans funded by the government used to inflate the profits of private companies, who will be paid to run services with fewer workers and a bigger bill.

Despite news that some NHS hospitals will be privatised after being bankrupted by exactly the same public-private partnerships, uni bosses have no doubt in their ability to turn a profit from overcrowded, under-resourced courses.

After revealing a £4 million surplus this year, London Met management announced plans to privatise swathes of university services: BT, Capita and Wipro are competing to win a £74 million contract to run (and wring a decent profit from) student services, careers, libraries, IT and ‘consultancy’.

The massive economic and social value invested in our universities has been built up over decades with public money. We should not allow our common wealth to be auctioned off to private businesses whose only motive is profit.

Racism

The truth is that both the government and university vice-chancellors are cynically exploiting the desperate situation of thousands of students.

It’s no coincidence that the government’s attack on foreign students came on the same day its immigration statistics were published. These figures showed a decline in the numbers of immigrants – mainly due to a 20 per cent cut in new student visas.

But the Con-Dem government is determined to distort our understanding of immigration – by blaming poor immigrant workers and students for the social problems caused by a system which exploits millions for the profit of a few.

Student visas account for 40 per cent of all immigration into the UK. The majority are paying vast sums to study with very little security. In 2008, one of the first cuts made to pay for the bailout of the banks was state funding for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses. This mostly affected poor and female immigrants.

Now the students at London Met are being penalised for the failings of the university bosses and UKBA.

Defend education

Education is a right that should be provided with free and equal access to all. The barriers to education are used as a weapon to separate the skilled from unskilled, men from women and white from black.

The barriers to immigration and freedom of movement are a tool used by the bosses to keep us divided, struggling in competition against each other rather than collectively against the capitalists enriching themselves at our expense.

We oppose all barriers to freedom of movement and access to education. The rich have no barriers to hiding their fortunes in tax-havens – yet their racist border laws impose total control over the freedom to find work or education.

We reject any attempts to turn people against immigrant students and workers. They are not to blame for bosses who swindle the government or their employees. They face the same cuts and social problems as their neighbours along with the racist violence of the media and police.

Anti-racists, the NUS and teaching unions should immediately launch a campaign to get the students visas immediately reinstated.

We call for citizenship rights for all undocumented workers, with no penalisations.

We stand for equal access to education for all, free and paid for by raising taxes on the banks and capitalists.

REVOLUTION supports a statement of solidarity with the students, calling for the government to reinstate London Met’s HTS status and stop the persecution of foreign students.

You can sign the statement at www.anticuts.com

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We don’t want ‘free schools’ we want good schools

July 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Parents have voted with their feet against plans to open a flagship ‘free school’ in London. It had to be ditched, because nobody wanted to send their children there. However many more of these privately-run, publicly-funded schools have opened across the country. Newly qualified teacher Tom  from Bristol investigates…

Of all branches of the government education is always contentious- every minister considers themselves an absolute expert based on the fact that, um, they went to school once, usually private, and therefore know exactly “what it is like.” Our current heroic educational overlord has made it his mission to “reform education” by getting rid of “bad teachers” and “bad schools”; presumably by attacking the professionalism, pay and condition of teachers- you know those people who may know slightly more about education than a career politician, pissing on young peoples chances by cutting their EMA, hounding and demonising poorer parents, cutting social support to the extent that increasing numbers of children miss out on meals and suffer from undernourishment, and allowing unhealthy food to be served when they are in school. In the name of market choice, Gove has taken the New Labour project for education to its extreme conclusion, outsourcing and asset stripping as much of state education as possible to sell off to his mates in exchange for a cushy job once he has finished “reforming” our education system. Comprehensive education has never been perfect catchment areas, faith schools, selection by the backdoor and an overloaded curriculum have all hindered education. He is a key ideological plank (pun intended) of a vicious government that has dually declared war on the same kids he somehow believes, or tells us he believes, he is saving.

 

 He has achieved this great wheeze by employing Michael Wilshaw head of Ofsted, the great tool for seemingly arbitrarily declaring schools are “satisfactory” (doublespeak for no good); that they are not suitably “high achieving” and therefore to be forced into becoming academies. Another key part of this brazenly corrupt plan is the free school programme: money is taken out of the state system and placed in the hand of the great caring armies of the Big Society who again, cos hey they went to school once too are somehow experts; horrible people like Toby Young- a man who finds it hilarious that the “PC-brigade” believe in things such as wheelchair access in schools and support for young people with special educational needs[1]-  he is odious- a man who achieved everything in life due to accident of birth- son of a MP and life peer- but ask him and yes, of course his path to Oxbridge was a great narrative of struggling against the odds in the name of meritocracy (a word coined ironically by his father, Toby would appreciate the double irony I am sure)! Gove and Young are idiots but they are not stupid, these are not pet projects, these are attempts to turn education into another moneymaking scam.

 

Now, in the name of the great fear that his little children may have to rub shoulders with the working class- or, heaven forbid, people that aren’t white in a community comprehensive- Young is the big sponsor of a free school in Hammersmith- because a second-rate journalist pushy parent and his mates can do better than a school staff, admittedly overworked and undervalued but working their hardest to improve the experiences and life chances of children; some of who come from difficult backgrounds and have a variety of needs; invariably historic outcomes of class inequality. The Great Govean-Young pact is this; these children can have a chance, a new school tie and five hours of Latin a week, they can learn how great the British Empire is, and they too can succeed like Baron Michael Young’s poor little self-made darling; and if not, if they bring any of the problems of, you know, living in the real world, the Tory world of rampant inequality and concomitant social miseries, into the school, or, being born with a disability (how dare they!) you can kick ‘em down the road to the underfunded comprehensive; and attack them further and further for not magically “raising attainment” and hitting arbitrary and artificial targets.

 

Yet people are increasingly seeing through these free schools at least – the government’s power to forcibly turn schools into academies – a threat to children and teachers alike-   persists and its roll-out continues apace; as does shovelling child’s future on to the capitalist fallacies of free market and sham-“choice” in education and the ongoing attack on teachers profession status, pay ,conditions and pensions. Yet at least the free schools- you hope- are showing up Teflon Mike; the man who knows everything there is about teaching young people. In Suffolk people looked on bemused as misguided local worthies and religious cranks demanded the opening of more schools; in an area where every school is currently under subscribed; parents and local people pointed out “um, we don’t need more schools” but again Mike feel free to invest some of the money for your bizarre stalking horses for wholesale privatisation to um invest in the schools that do exist; how about providing those schools new buildings, paying their staff properly and providing kids with decent food at lunchtime. Other parents have pointed out the slight problem with letting creationists run schools.

 

The RSA stated the obvious in saying that “the impact of free schools would be enhanced if they were developed strategically in localities where new places are needed or where there is school failure, rather than investing in extra capacity in areas where the school system is performing well.” This is the case in Newham, historically one of the poorest areas in London and Britain and one, from the experience of my school days here (see, everyone went to school, everyone is an expert!) that has benefitted from ‘context value added’ the idea that although the kids may come from poor and challenging backgrounds what teachers and staff in school provide the kids is the best they can with means available- that is a great education; no pet-projects, no market choice- the Guardian summarises it well ‘In 2011 57% of 16-year-olds in Newham’s state schools achieved five GCSE passes including English and maths, just below the national average of 58.9% – a remarkable achievement in the second most deprived borough in the country.’ Thankfully when these worthies and do-gooders came around to Newham with their grand schemes people told them where to go, and even a man as driven and certain and with as much unaccounted for executive power as Gove gave up on this one- this is a small victory in a difficult fight- Gove will still happily see every school in the borough and elsewhere in London and across the country Academised, Marketised and Incentivised.


 Our comprehensive education is too important to let a destructive asset stripper get away with it. Go away Gove you are a part of a regime that is happy to see children go hungry, you want to ruin education in the name of your bankrupt and barren ideology to make yourself and your mates a bit of money at the expense of these selfsame kids whose lives your millionaire cabinet seems to take great glee in ruining. We are for an education system based on need and not greed; for a new comprehensive system one that supports children, parents, teachers and the local community alike rooted on equality; this will only come about with wider social change.

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Solidarity with the struggles of workers and youth in Quebec

July 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

REVOLUTION sends our fraternal greetings to all youth taking part in the Quebec Student Strike. We address this letter in a spirit of solidarity and recognition that your struggle is the same being fought in the universities, squares and schools across Europe.

On June 22nd global ‘Casserole’ protests marked the birth of an international solidarity movement.

From Montreal to Madrid, youth have been in the vanguard of opposition to the crisis. Revolutions against dictatorship and occupations against austerity have put youth on the frontline of the international class struggle.

Since February 13th 150,000 students have joined an indefinite general strike against attempts to increase tuition fees by 75%. Hundreds of thousands more have staged boycotts, walkouts and solidarity action for over four months.

If fees were the spark, anger at wider attacks provided the fuel for a movement which has brought youth and workers into the streets to defy the batons, courts and tear gas of a regime with no solution but repression.

The defence of education led by the students of Quebec is an inspiration to all youth across the world waging their own resistance to cuts, poverty and unemployment.

Jean-Luc Charest’s ‘liberal’ government knows that it cannot permit a victorious student movement to signal to the world that resistance is necessary – and victory possible.

The success of the student assemblies and federations in drawing the government into a wider confrontation with education and public-sector workers is the key to the strike’s success.

But attempts to compromise and retreat show that young people alone cannot resist indefinitely.

The government refuses to negotiate – counting on dividing ‘moderate’ from ‘radical’, ‘privileged students’ from ‘struggling families’. The attacks on democratic rights imposed under Bill 78 gives Charest unlimited power to ban the right to strike, protest or assemble.

The strike movement has the initiative; now it must use it and answer the question ‘where next?’

With the students out of the way, the government will turn on the social spending for welfare programmes, calculating that making an example of the students will intimidate workers and youth into silence when their turn comes.

Success then, depends on whether we can transform a movement in defence of education into a working class resistance to the austerity offensive imposed by Charest and the federal government.

To the trade unions – the only social force capable of bringing down the government – we must say ‘our struggle is yours – and your struggles will only be strengthened by our victory’.

Raising common demands and taking united action on this basis is necessary to mobilise the forces necessary to stand up to the government’s violence and attempts to divide-and-rule.

Joint strike committees and democratic assemblies must be used to launch a national campaign in defence of education, against the social cuts and reverse the attacks on democratic rights.

The democratic structures uniting the unemployed alongside the youth and workers can form the basis for national action independent of the vacillating leaders of trade unions and reformist parties.

Now is not the time for compromise – the result of the crisis is that our  health, education, pensions and wages will be slashed to inflate profit rates for a privileged minority class. Unemployment is used to reduce wages and intensify competition.

In every country capitalism has the least to offer to the youth. The capitalist solution to the crisis is simple – we, the youth and working class, will pay.

But in the schools, in the workplace and on the streets millions have shown that we refuse to pay for a crisis we didn’t cause.

We think we need to turn that courage and determination into a real force for social change. We want to build a revolutionary youth movement, armed with a programme which calls for the independent organisation of young people as part of the international class struggle.

The capitalist crisis has thrown up challenges new and old. From Sudan to Athens, youth are facing the question of how we can go beyond a system which offers no future – and says we must pay for the mistakes of the past.

The struggle for workers’ power and communism provides the only alternative for the oppressed, impoverished and exploited masses.

We appeal to all revolutionary youth to join us in building a new Youth International – a fighting organisation of young communists in every country, committed to a strategy of international working-class revolution.

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When homework = profit… we say hands off our education!

May 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Education Minister Michael Gove has let slip what we knew all along – he wants schools to become institutions run for profit, where profitability takes priority over education. 

In his appearance at the Leveson Inquiry into phone-hacking by Murdoch’s media empire, he revealed that the Tories’ pet ‘free schools’ “could” become profit-making businesses “when we come to that bridge”. A bridge he hopes to construct as soon as possible – in the Tories’ second term.

The New Statesman calls this a “policy shift”. We call it a liar caught out by his own over-inflated sense of self-importance.

Last year he said:

Nick (Clegg) and I are completely in agreement on this (banning for-profit free schools). It’s not an issue.

The Conservative election manifesto said that we don’t need to have profit at the moment, the Liberal Democrat manifesto said that we don’t need profit at the moment and we don’t.

While Clegg cemented his reputation as a liar of the highest calibre by claiming:

To anyone worried that, by expanding the mix of providers in our education system, we are inching towards inserting the profit motive into our school system, again, let me reassure you. Yes to greater diversity; yes to more choice for parents. But no to running schools for profit, not in our state-funded education sector.

The revelation of the Tories’ plans to put our education under the control of the profit-hungry bosses and banks who caused the economic crisis should come as no surprise. It comes as the Tories seek to distance themselves from the Liberal Democrats – trying to make themselves more attractive to their big-business backers who are demanding a harder line on austerity and privatisation.

The ongoing privatisation of universities was merely the first step in their offensive against the remaining elements of the Welfare State.

With these plans  out in the open, resistance to the current attacks on teachers’ pensions, working conditions and national pay agreements becomes ever-more urgent.

The Tories are hoping to win a decisive confrontation against the teachers’ unions over the issue of pensions. If they succeed, this will dramatically weaken the power and militancy of the unions, making them incapable of resisting the introduction of the profit-motive into our schools.

Academies and ‘free’ schools are not required to sign up to the nationally-agreed pay, pension and working conditions implemented by the Labour government. Many are now employing teachers on lower salaries, with longer hours and fewer support services.

If big business are so interested in running our education for their profit, let them pay their taxes so we can decide how money is spent in our society.

If the Tory plans are succesful, the idea of comprehensive, free education for all will disappear from Britain. In it’s place will be a patchwork system of private schools competing for the brightest and wealthiest students. This will result in a two-tier education system, where schools in working class and immigrant areas are starved of funds, staff and resources.

In this context, it’s good news that the NUT and NASUWT unions – which represent 85% of Britain’s teachers – have announced plans to stage joint strike action this autum.

As the recent victory at Central Foundation Girls’ School in London showed, united cross-union action is the most effective way to beat the attacks.

We support the planned strike action and will organise a solidarity campaign amongst school students. Students should form strike committees in their schools to democratically organise action alongside their teachers – from picket line support to boycotts and demonstrations.

The unions are striking over jobs, pay, workload and pensions – but students can strike in defence of the right to free, high-quality education that leads us to real jobs, paid a living wage. 

If the government doesn’t back down over these plans, we must organise young people to build a movement which demands the support of the trade unions and Labour Party in defeating the idea of for-profit education for good.

  • Education is not for sale!

  • Kick the profiteers out of our schools!

  • Nationalise the academies and free schools!

  • Bring back EMA – a living grant for all students!

 

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Leeds May Day protest targets NHS profiteers

May 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

150 people turned out in the cold sunshine today for International Workers’ Day (May 1). Home-made placards and flags waved alongside banners representing most of the big trade unions – including the PCS and NUT who will be striking on May 10.

The atmosphere was lively despite the cold and once the demonstration started there was lots of chanting. ‘They say cut back, we say fight back’ echoed the streets as shoppers stopped to watch us march down the roads. A splinter group of youth and NHS activists broke off from the main march to picket the Virgin store.  We chanted slogans denouncing the attempted privatisation of parts of the NHS by Virgin Health, owned by billionaire Richard Branson.

The rally was good with speakers from the PCS, TUSC and Labour MP John McDonnell, who said people felt ‘let down’ by the Coalition. Unlike Leeds’ own MPs McDonnell called on people to support the upcoming May 10 Pensions’ strike and called for a general strike against cuts. A PCS member spoke about the action and why the attacks on jobs, education and health can only be stopped by fighting back.

We spoke to some young trade unionists on the march who said this:

Rebecca (PCS) “ I’m here because International Workers’ Day is all about fighting for workers rights and defending ourselves against the austerity, the worst austerity since WW2. I’m here to fight for my pension, job and pay, I will be out on strike on the 10th of May, we need to be striking and demonstrating against this government.”

Sam (UCU)   “It’s disgraceful what’s happening to our services and jobs. Our union leaders need to start fighting for us and stop selling us out.”

Mike (UNISON Health)  “Working within the NHS I can see what the recent health and social care bill is doing already, here in Leeds the cytology (study of cells) service is being made to compete with Serco, a private provider. People will lose jobs and services will suffer.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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NASUWT conference backs further action against austerity

April 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Teachers have voted for an escalation in industrial action over the government’s attacks on state education.

 

NASUWT, a teachers union not typically known for its militancy, held their annual conference in Birmingham this weekend and delegates unanimously backed a resolution that could see walkouts closing schools in the autumn term.
The motion said that teachers faced “scurrilous attacks, abuse, intimidation and lies”, and accused the government of a “vicious assault” on the profession.  The motion is said to have highlighted the unions concern over the privatisation of our schools and the economic interest in education, evidenced by the huge expansion of privately-run and privately-owned academies in recent years.

 

Education provision faces a very real attack, and not just from the government’s cuts. Figures published last week by the Department for Education revealed that the majority of England’s state secondary schools are, or are about to become, academies, taking them out of the hands of local councils and making them the property of private companies.

 

Private sponsors have little incentive to improve support for students with the most problems, since their investment in school is calculated on its ability to produce a direct profit or reinforce a business’s ‘community friendly’ credentials. Frequently academies refuse to take on pupils with lower grades or patterns of bad behaviour, for fear that it will tarnish the reputation of their school.

 

The union’s leadership claim that their motion will allow them to prepare and carry out a flexible campaign in the autumn with actions short of a strike (also known as ‘work-to-rule’, which often involves boycotting admin work and marking), leading up to a ballot for strikes, in response to the attacks on their pay & conditions coming from academies and austerity.
The threat to teachers’ pay and conditions from academies is also being debated by the National Union of Teachers at its currently ongoing annual conference, with a motion pushing for fresh strike action to be debated.

 

Last month we saw the union leaders back out of a national strike and in the end, the NUT and UCU held a regional strike in London. This kind of action won’t be enough to beat the government on pensions or prevent the expansion of private academies.

 

If the next wave of public-sector strikes are delayed until Autumn, then it will have been nearly a year between national strikes. With this strategy, strikes become more like expensive protests for workers, rather than a direct attempt to stop the government enforcing policy. This can be counter-productive, as workers often won’t take part in strikes they don’t think can win. There needs to be a strategy of escalating action which leads towards indefinite strikes.

 

Young people in the trade unions should take the example of the successful electricians’ campaign and organise with other ordinary members to pressure the leaders into taking serious action sooner rather than later. School, college and university students should aim to take their own action- occupations, stunts, and protests, with the view to encourage staff to join them. Our unity in action remains the only way to halt the government’s attacks.

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ALERT! Doctors set to pull off giant NHS scam

March 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Just days after the passing of the devastating Health and Social Care bill, more evidence has been uncovered that we are moving ever close to wholesale privatisation of our NHS…

Just as GPs are about to take over control of £60bn of NHS funding and decide how it should be spent, it has been revealed that many of them have shares in private healthcare firms – a clear conflict of interest that will mean a serious bias in favour of those private firms winning contracts to provide our healthcare.

The latest research shows that in 22 of the new Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), at least half, and sometimes all of the GPs that sit on those boards have a personal financial interest in one of these private providers!

In 10 of the CCGs, a majority of the GPs run a “provider company” in partnership with Virgin Care, which makes its profits by being paid by the NHS to offer dermatology, physiotherapy and rheumatology services.

In 7 other CCGs, many of the GPs make a second income by providing out of hours care for private “not for profit” doctor collectives.

This has lead to increasing concerns that these conflicts of interests could anger patients and diminish trust in GPs, at the same time as leading to increasing privatisation.

Dr Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of GPs said:

“The fact that GPs have these outside interests may influence their commissioning decisions, and may put at risk their relationship with their patients because the patient might mistrust where they are being sent to for treatment and the GP’s motives. It may also damage the NHS because having many different providers will increase costs and fragment care, which means patients will lose out.”

Coming soon after the leaked Risk Register, which identified potential risks for the NHS after the bill was implemented, this is yet another example of how serious the threat to our NHS is and how we need to fight to save it now!

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Leeds says Hands off our NHS

December 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Remember this? Cameron ran the election on the slogan “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS.” Enough people saw through his bullshit to deny him an outright majority in Parliament, but propped up by the Lib Dem stooges, the Tories are doing their best to funnel our money into bankers’ pockets by selling off our healthcare to the highest bidder.

The Children’s Heart Surgery Unit at the Yorkshire Heart Centre in Leeds, which provides specialist care for vulnerable children from all over Yorkshire and the Humber is the latest frontline service to face the axe.

The threat comes as a result of a national review into children’s congenital heart services and also of children’s neurosurgical services which calls for the closure of four, possibly five, of the eleven existing units carrying out paediatric cardiac care.

The hospitals earmarked to lose children’s heart surgery will be selected from among the Freeman in Newcastle, Leeds General Infirmary, Glenfield in Leicester, Oxford Radcliffe, Southampton General and the Royal Brompton – one of three units in London.

The plan is to replace these units with expanded services at Liverpool Alder Hey, Birmingham Children’s, Bristol Children’s, Guy’s and Great Ormond Street hospitals.

They will not only have to expand provisionally for the patients from the five threatened units, but must also provide care for the family who will be forced to travel in search of treatment.

The threat of closure hanging over the Leeds and Newcastle units is a further blow to the northern regions of England which are suffering disproportionately from the slash and burn austerity meted out by central government.

These cuts will have a huge impact on the families of children receiving care who are likely to be in hospital for a pro-longed period of time. Families will be forced to travel significant distances when local services are cut, putting a serious strain  on family life, jobs and other commitments which have already been put under immense pressure by job cuts, wage freezes and cuts to welfare entitlements.

For many children the units facing closure will be somewhere they recognise and are accustomed to, where they will have built up a relationship with the doctors and nurses. This will be completely destroyed if they are forced to move to other units for treatment.

Shutting down this unit will have a detrimental affect on Leeds General Infirmary as a whole as it will reduce services it provides and set a precedent, putting other wards in jeopardy.

The Tories pledged not to cut frontline services, yet a children’s surgery at the heart of the community is hardly ‘red tape’.

It is unbelievable that quality care for our children is being put at risk, when thousands of Tory Party donors evade £90billion in tax every year.

The NHS is not safe in the Tories’ hands. Waiting times are increasing, operations available on the NHS are being slashed and thousands of workers are losing their jobs.

Cameron is committed to installing a US-style healthcare business in place of the NHS before the next election. Leeds is just one example of a national attack on the NHS which has been bought and paid for with our money and hard work.

Despite the efforts of Tories and the right-wing media to undermine confidence in the NHS, public support has never been higher. This is hardly surprising, because in spite of the chaos introduced by Labour’s semi-privatisation and the Tories’ Health and Social Care Bill reforms, the NHS remains one of the best publicly run and funded health service in the world.

 

 

Read more

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Anti-Academy strike stays strong at Prince Henry’s School

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Teachers at Prince Henry’s School in Otley entered their third day of strike action this morning against plans to turn the school into an Academy, due to come into force on December 1st.

60 teachers were joined by around 30 students for a lively picket starting at 7:30am.

The atmosphere was very positive and vibrant with lots of home-made placards in addition to the official NUT and NASUWT ones. There was lots of honking of horns from supportive motorists and food was provided by a nearby cafe.

One of the students had invited Ryk Downes, a lib dem councillor for Otley and Yeadon was the first of the school governors to resign over the matter, demonstrating a commitment to principles unusual for his party. He said it was obvious that the majority of staff, parents, students and community weren’t in favour of the academy plans. Although the school’s so-called ‘consultation process’ did not include a poll of parents, a show of hands taken at a public meeting showed only 2 for, with 72 against. He also raised the issue that school buildings would not longer by insured by the LEA, undermining the Headteacher’s promises not to cut wages and to create 10 new jobs.

He didn’t say what he’d be doing as a councillor to oppose the academy plan but said ‘it’s not really a politically situation’; meaning he plans to do precisely nothing, short of photo-shoots on picket lines.

This craven abdication of his responsibility as a local councillor reflects the fact that the Liberal Democrats are propping up the Tory government, whose Education Bill has just been signed into law, paving the way for the wholescale privatisation of all Primary and Secondary schools.

The students went into school at 8-30 despite talking to them about holding a student strike. There main concern was that although they wanted to support the teachers and oppose the Academy plans, they didn’t want to be suspended for their actions. However they were all dressed in black which was described by one student as:

‘Although it doesn’t seem to be doing anything, it is showing that we’re communicating together and behind the teachers in numbers.’

This is a good step forward, but with just 2 weeks to go until the privatisation comes into effect, we need students to

students and staff on the picket line

escalate the pressure on the governers by coming out in force alongside their teachers.

The trade unions at the school must be unequivocal in defending any student who is victimised for striking in defence of their school. While we have no illusions in the NUS’s capacity or willingness to defend school students, it too must take a stand against any threats made against students for taking poltical action.

Unbelievably, it came to light that during an assembly about the Academies, Headteacher  Janet Sheriff had told the students ‘not to worry as there would be no chavs,’ in the academy. The students said they were appalled by the language she used and the by her implicit suggestion that working class children wouldn’t be admitted to the school.

While shocking, this attitude is completely in keeping with the Academies ethos – under Labour, Academies were used to ‘rescue’ failing schools in poor communities; under the Tories, Academies are targetted at schools serving wealthier communities, where investors hope to get a bigger return on their investment by dumping costly provision for students with special educational needs.

At around 9 o’clock there was a march in Otley Town Centre, although quiet with no chanting it was still very much supported by passers-by and members of the community. We marched to a nearby church where a public meeting was held followed by a union meeting.

In the public meeting it emerged that the head teacher believed the strike would have crumbled by the third day and hadn’t expected it to go on so long. The NUT and NASUWT put forward 3 proposals they wanted the head teacher to agree to before they would agree to review the strike action.

  • Defer the Academy Plans instead of allowing them to go ahead on Dec 1st
  • Ballot the Parents
  • Allow the Governors to put forward their arguments for and against.

Initially, Janet Sheriff wanted to challenge the legality of the strikes, but faced with the strength of the strike and unity between staff and students, she is now looking to reach an agreement, demonstrating that determined strike action is the best way to defend profit-motivated attacks on education.

A meeting is being held tomorrow in which the union reps and head teacher will discuss what can be done to resolve the matter and how further strikes can be prevented.  The union reps are in a strong position to force the Head Teacher to back down, but further strike action should not be ruled out until the Academy proposal is abandoned.

It seemed a lot of teachers were opposed to the Academy but whether they’ll agree to the proposal being deferred and discussed more remains to be seen.

Students are going to visit LibDem MP Greg Mullholland’s surgery at 11am on Saturday at the Sainsbury’s in Otley and then leafleting within the general community afterwards.

There is also a public meeting called by Otley Town Council on Tuesday 17th November at 7pm in Otley Parish Church.

The struggle at Prince Otley’s will be seen as a test case by other schools in Leeds preparing Academy plans, and we encourage anyone concerned about the Academies rip-off to attend this meeting and organise resistance to the privatisation of our communities’ education to the lowest bidder.

Read more

Prince Henry’s School strikes against Academy plans

London School strikes against Academy proposal

Shorefields students suspended after anti-academy protest

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