education and learning
News and articles about work, policy and workers' and students' struggles in education around the world.
Why did we risk it all? Because we won't go down without a fight.
In August and September 2009, about 250 members of teaching staff at Tower Hamlets College went on strike over compulsory redundancies and cuts to course provision. Catalyst spoke to one of the strikers, Rachel, in the aftermath of the strike, about the up and downs of the battle against the bosses.
While the recent media spin is suggesting that we're 'on our way out of recession', the reality on the ground is that workers are still facing attacks across sectors in the forms of job cuts and community provisions.
Rationality & Science - Noam Chomsky
Chomsky on rationality & science. This essay formed part of a Z-Papers special issue on the topic in 1995.
THIS DISCUSSION involves people with a large range of shared aspirations and commitments; in some cases at least, friends who have worked and struggled together for many years. I hope, then, that I can be quite frank. And personal, since to be honest, I don't see much of independent substance to discuss.
An account of unofficial action at Tower Hamlets College
A short account by a participant of a staff rebellion in 2009 against an enforced training session, which helped build workers' collective confidence prior to a big strike.
Some local supporters witnessed an open air meeting of our union branch on Friday 3rd July where we had to take the decision of what to do on the Monday of the last week of work. Monday was not a strike day because it was planned as something more important.
Tower Hamlets College strikers interview
The Commune interviews two participants in the September 2009 ESOL teachers strike in East London against job cuts.
Tell us about what unions workers are in, their organising capacity, and of their previous relationship with management
London Education Workers' Group - a brief introduction
A brief working-summary of what the newly formed London Education Workers' Group is.
The London Education Workers Group was established so that education workers throughout London can come together to oppose the coming assault on education. We reject the division of workers into separate unions and recognise that politicians, political parties, and union bureaucrats have nothing to offer us. Instead, direct action must be our weapon.
Tower Hamlets College strike ends in partial victory
After a month-long strike against cuts, teaching staff at Tower Hamlets College have voted to return to work.
UCU said it was "delighted" that an agreement has finally been reached.
UCU head of further education Barry Lovejoy said: "Our members have fought a tremendous campaign and UCU is pleased to have finally reached an agreement with the college.
Tower Hamlets College strike continues into fourth week
ESOL teachers in east London continue their indefinite strike. A striker reports...
Teachers again affirmed support for continuing the indefinite strike action in a mass meeting Tuesday. About 150 people voted to stay out, with 13 abstentions and no votes against.
Solidarity with Tower Hamlets ESOL workers leaflet
A solidarity leaflet for September 12th 2009 rally in support of striking Tower Hamlets College workers.
Solidarity with Tower Hamlets ESOL workers!
ESOL teachers on indefinite strike in Tower Hamlets
Over 250 UCU members at Tower Hamlets College are in day 10 of an indefinite strike against cuts.
The package of cuts includes:
1 - Cuts in courses, particularly English for Speakers of Other Languages courses (1000 places going).
2 - Over 30 teachers’ jobs lost, including 13 compulsory redundancies.
3 - Attempts to turn a community college into a business for selling diplomas.
The life of students - Walter Benjamin
Benjamin makes an intelligent and eloquent case against the poverty of student life under capitalism in this early essay, written more than fifty years before the Situationists would tackle the same subject. He argues against the intellectual frigidity and alienation of the university as a factory of future workers, and for a genuine “community of learning.” Wider social issues that affect the university environment such as student activism, gender, and sexuality are also dealt with.
There is a view of history that puts its faith in the infinite extent of time and thus concerns itself only with the speed, or lack of it, with which people and epochs advance along the path of progress. This corresponds to a certain absence of coherence and rigor in the demands it makes on the present.
