education and learning
News and articles about work, policy and workers' and students' struggles in education around the world.
Germany: high school students strike
High School students struck and marched across Germany yesterday in protest against classroom overcrowding, lack of teachers, and the pressure of examinations.
Some 100,000 participated in demonstrations across the country, walking out of classes and marching in over 40 cities. They protested for more permanent staff, smaller classes, and against a sped-up version of the school leaving exam, called the “turbo-abitur”.
The Permanent Crisis in Education: On Some Recent Struggles in Greece - TPTG
A detailed look at the strikes and occupations by teachers, students and parents in 2006-7 in response to neo-liberal policies being imposed on the Greek educational system.
Education - further reading guide
Libcom's guide to further reading on education.
*Jonathan Kozol:
- Savage Inequalities
- Illiterate America
- On Being A Teacher
- The Night Is Dark And I Am Far From Home
- Death At An Early Age
- Rachael and Her Children
- Free Schools
- Children of the Revolution
- Prisoners of Silence
*Michael Apple:
- Ideology and Curriculum
- Ideology and Practice in Schooling - w/Weiss
Ofsted workers latest to strike over pay
Ofsted inspections across England are halted today as 1000 staff walk out in a dispute over pay.
Inspections of nurseries, children's care homes, childminding services and boarding schools will all be hit. Ofsted has imposed a below inflation pay deal along with a new pay structure, which members of UNISON and the PCS have rejected.
This is the latest public sector stoppage over sub-inflationary pay rises - real pay cuts
April 24 – hundreds of thousands to walk out
On Thursday April 24 thousands of civil servants, coastguards, council workers, FE lecturers and charity workers will join a national teachers strike of 200,000.
Employer attacks on workers' pay is the main issue at stake.
Teachers in the NUT are walking out over their pay deal which was supposed to be revised when inflation rose, but the government refused: effectively cutting their wages.
20,000 Birmingham council workers to strike
20,000 GMB, UNISON, AMICUS, TGWU (Unite) and UCATT members will strike alongside teachers and lecturers against council plans to use ‘Single Status’ negotiations to cut pay and jobs.
Council workers will be protesting against the new pay and grading system imposed by Birmingham council last week, affecting 40,000 staff.
UNISON has branded the structure discriminatory. Though it was designed to end wage inequalities, some workers will lose up to half their pay.
Lecturers to join teachers' strike
College lecturers in England have voted to strike on Thursday 24 April in support of a demand to bring their pay up to that of schoolteachers.
Lecturers in over 250 colleges were balloted by UCU. The UCU website states that the the result shows solid support for industrial action: 65.5% of those voting* supported strike action and 86.2% also supported other forms of industrial action short of a strike.
Poland: Three labour conflicts highlight the state's animosity towards Workers
Currently there are many labour conflicts in Poland, including various forms of strikes and protest. Almost 20 years after Poland's transition to a market economy, labour unrest is still strongest in the budget sector and in state-owned companies.
THE STRIKE IN BUDRYK: Miners get the shaft as elite get wealthy
The mining industry in Poland is still a quite healthy business. Fuel prices are rising as is the global demand for coal. Budryk is one of the mines in Poland that was making a very healthy profit – until a labour dispute began costing the mine losses of about 1 million US dollars per day.
France: Students demonstrate in Paris
Some 3000 school and university students marched through the streets of Paris today to show their continuing opposition to the LRU
The march began at the PRG campus (Paris VII) on the South side of the Seine, the march then made its way past the gare d'Austerlitz and finally ended at the place de la Bastille where Police blocked off the exits.
France: More workers join strikes
Hundreds of thousands of health workers, civil servants, printers postal workers and air traffic controllers yesterday joined transport and energy strikes over pensions and pay.
Thousands joined street protests in Paris, Rouen, Strasbourg, Marseille, Grenoble, Lyon and other cities.
The 24 hour strike left many schools closed, hospitals providing a reduced service and newsagents without newspapers.
The BBC reported that the French capital's two airports and Marseille airport in the south suffered delays and cancellations.
