Take Back Education Teach In: Saturday 27th Feb, 11-4pm, Kings College, (Registration from 10.15am)
Please see below for a provisional timetable. Over 370 people are booked up for the event already. If you haven't yet booked up do so now and please bring as many friends and colleagues as possible - We don't want anyone to miss out!
The venue is:
Strand Building
King's College London
London WC2
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/campuses/strand.html
There will be further directions when you arrive.
11am-12.30 Opening Plenary
The crisis in our universities and the battle for education
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Juan C Piedra Justice for Cleaners
Jim Wolfreys President KCL UCU
Sarah Young Sussex Uni occupation
Michal Rosen poet and education campaigner
12.30-1.30pm lunch
1.30-3pm workshops
1. The corporate takeover of our universities (RM: Lucas Theatre)
Stathis Kouvalakis lecturer and radical theorist
Alex Callinicos lecturer and author Universities in a neoliberal world
2. Reclaiming our student unions (RM: S-1.06)
James Haywood NUS NEC
Daff Addley LGBT NUS
3. Education for liberation –what should our education look like? (RM: S-1.27)
Patrick Ainley author 'Education Make You Fick, Innit?’
Gargi Bhattacharyya professor of sociology and author
4. 1968 – what can we learn from the fire last time? (RM S.2.23)
Mike Gonzalez 1968er and author
5. Education for all – challenging Islamophobia, racism and points based immigration (RM K2.40)
Assed Baig Staffs SU President
Arun Kundnani Institute of Race Relations (invited)
3-4pm Final Plenary
The tasks ahead – taking back our education
Terry Eagleton
Lesley McGorrigan Officer Leeds Uni UCU
Nikos Lountos Panteion University, Athens
Alison Lord Tower Hamlets UCU
Student from No Cuts @ Kings
Friday, February 26, 2010
TEACH - IN TOMORROW - Over 370 people are booked up for the event already!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
ADDITIONAL SPEAKER - Eyewitness from general strikes in GREECE!
2 DAYS 'TIL TEACH-IN!
New additional speaker Nikos Loudos will be giving an eye witness report from the general strikes and occupations against the effects of the crisis and the cut backs in GREECE.
Plus a striking lecturer from Leeds, a Sussex student occupier, Terry Eagleton, Michael Rosen, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Alex Callinicos, Juan Carlos Piedra Justice for Clearners, Gargi Battacharyia UCU, Assed Baig Staffs SU President, Stathis Kouvelakis, Daff Adley NUS LGBT amongst others.
Workshops include the crisis and the battle for education, challenging racism and Islamophobia; the corporate take over of education, what should our education look like?, reclaiming our unions, 1968 – what can we learn from the fire last time?, the tasks ahead – taking back our education.
As strikes spread across Europe…come to the “Take Back Education” teach-in this Saturday to organise and strengthen the resistance and to roll back the government’s attacks.
Management at Leeds University have been put on the backfoot by lecturers' strike threats; other colleges and universities are now starting the process of balloting to strike; the teach-in will be an important step in building the resistance to the massive attacks in education.
Register now! Invite others! Forward this message far and wide!
New additional speaker Nikos Loudos will be giving an eye witness report from the general strikes and occupations against the effects of the crisis and the cut backs in GREECE.
Plus a striking lecturer from Leeds, a Sussex student occupier, Terry Eagleton, Michael Rosen, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Alex Callinicos, Juan Carlos Piedra Justice for Clearners, Gargi Battacharyia UCU, Assed Baig Staffs SU President, Stathis Kouvelakis, Daff Adley NUS LGBT amongst others.
Workshops include the crisis and the battle for education, challenging racism and Islamophobia; the corporate take over of education, what should our education look like?, reclaiming our unions, 1968 – what can we learn from the fire last time?, the tasks ahead – taking back our education.
As strikes spread across Europe…come to the “Take Back Education” teach-in this Saturday to organise and strengthen the resistance and to roll back the government’s attacks.
Management at Leeds University have been put on the backfoot by lecturers' strike threats; other colleges and universities are now starting the process of balloting to strike; the teach-in will be an important step in building the resistance to the massive attacks in education.
Register now! Invite others! Forward this message far and wide!
Take Back Education - 3 days left 'til the teach-in
There is an unprecedented attack on tertiary education with cuts estimated as high as £2.5bn - or 1/3 of total HE funding. Upwards of 14,000 jobs could be in the firing line and many institutions could close altogether. We need a united campaign, not just to save jobs but also to defend education.
3 days left 'til the teach-in – share this message with everyone you know:
TAKE BACK EDUCATION: A TEACH-IN TO BUILD THE RESISTANCE:
THIS SATURDAY 27 FEBRUARY 11AM-4PM, KINGS COLLEGE LONDON
Tickets available at http://educationactionlondon.blogspot.com/
(£6 waged, £3 unwaged)
The No Cuts @ King's campaign and King's UCU are hosting a mass teach-in this Saturday. The event is aimed at both students and education workers from across the country and will be full of alternative lectures and tutorials. Hundreds are signed up already; make sure you're there too!
Sessions include:
• The crisis in our universities and the battle for education
• The tasks ahead – building resistance that can win
• The corporate takeover of our universities
• Reclaiming our students' unions
• Education for liberation – what could our education look like?
• Education for all – challenging Islamophobia, racism and points based immigration
• 1968 – what can we learn from the fire last time?
The line up includes:
• Terry Eagleton – literary critic
• Alison Lord – UCU branch chair from the victorious campaign to stop cuts at Tower Hamlets college
• Michael Rosen – poet and education campaigner
• Jeremy Corbyn MP – member of Parliament for Islington North
• Nikos Lountos – activist from Greece
• Alex Callinicos – author of Education in a Neoliberal World and professor at Kings College London
• Daf Adley & James Haywood – NUS Executive
• Juan Carlos Piedra – Justice for Cleaners
• Stathis Kouvelakis – Lecturer and author
• Lesley McGorrigan – Officer at Leeds University UCU who are striking against cuts
• Mike Gonzalez – 1968 activist and author
• Patrick Ainley – author of Education Make You Fick Innit
• Sarah Young – student from Sussex University occupation
• Gargi Bhattacharyya – author and professor of sociology
• Assed Baig & Tara Hewitt – students union officers
• Jim Wolfreys – president King’s College London UCU
3 days left 'til the teach-in – share this message with everyone you know:
TAKE BACK EDUCATION: A TEACH-IN TO BUILD THE RESISTANCE:
THIS SATURDAY 27 FEBRUARY 11AM-4PM, KINGS COLLEGE LONDON
Tickets available at http://educationactionlondon.blogspot.com/
(£6 waged, £3 unwaged)
The No Cuts @ King's campaign and King's UCU are hosting a mass teach-in this Saturday. The event is aimed at both students and education workers from across the country and will be full of alternative lectures and tutorials. Hundreds are signed up already; make sure you're there too!
Sessions include:
• The crisis in our universities and the battle for education
• The tasks ahead – building resistance that can win
• The corporate takeover of our universities
• Reclaiming our students' unions
• Education for liberation – what could our education look like?
• Education for all – challenging Islamophobia, racism and points based immigration
• 1968 – what can we learn from the fire last time?
The line up includes:
• Terry Eagleton – literary critic
• Alison Lord – UCU branch chair from the victorious campaign to stop cuts at Tower Hamlets college
• Michael Rosen – poet and education campaigner
• Jeremy Corbyn MP – member of Parliament for Islington North
• Nikos Lountos – activist from Greece
• Alex Callinicos – author of Education in a Neoliberal World and professor at Kings College London
• Daf Adley & James Haywood – NUS Executive
• Juan Carlos Piedra – Justice for Cleaners
• Stathis Kouvelakis – Lecturer and author
• Lesley McGorrigan – Officer at Leeds University UCU who are striking against cuts
• Mike Gonzalez – 1968 activist and author
• Patrick Ainley – author of Education Make You Fick Innit
• Sarah Young – student from Sussex University occupation
• Gargi Bhattacharyya – author and professor of sociology
• Assed Baig & Tara Hewitt – students union officers
• Jim Wolfreys – president King’s College London UCU
Monday, February 1, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Education Activists Meeting
Many thanks to everyone who attended the activists meeting last night. We had over 120 people there, including UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt, who addressed the meeting. After an excellent discussion, we agreed the following:
1) Tuesday 26 January. UCU lobby of parliament. Staff and students from across London to assemble 1pm King’s College London, Strand entrance. Leaflet downloadable to the right*.
2) Wednesday 27 January. Activists committee, made up on one member from UCU, Unite, Unison from each institution, and one student from each institution, to meet 6.30pm, KCL. Room details to follow.
3) Saturday 27 February. Teach-in for staff and students across London, in defence of education against the market, to be held at KCL and organized by the above committee.
4) Saturday 20 March. We support the call for a national demonstration in defence of education and will use all available channels to win backing for this from the appropriate trade unions.
In solidarity,
Jim Wolfreys
President, KCL UCU
* Text in leaflet may need resizing on different computers.
1) Tuesday 26 January. UCU lobby of parliament. Staff and students from across London to assemble 1pm King’s College London, Strand entrance. Leaflet downloadable to the right*.
2) Wednesday 27 January. Activists committee, made up on one member from UCU, Unite, Unison from each institution, and one student from each institution, to meet 6.30pm, KCL. Room details to follow.
3) Saturday 27 February. Teach-in for staff and students across London, in defence of education against the market, to be held at KCL and organized by the above committee.
4) Saturday 20 March. We support the call for a national demonstration in defence of education and will use all available channels to win backing for this from the appropriate trade unions.
In solidarity,
Jim Wolfreys
President, KCL UCU
* Text in leaflet may need resizing on different computers.
Monday, January 11, 2010
London-wide HE activists meeting with UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt
20 January, 6.30pm, King’s College London,
Strand K6.29
Strand K6.29
Peter Mandelson’s announcement just before Christmas that university funding in England is to be cut by £398m for 2010-11 has raised the stakes in the fight to defend higher education. For London Colleges the need for coordinated action, already urgent, has now become imperative. We need a massive turnout of staff and students for the lobby of parliament on 26 January and a strategy for defending jobs in HE.
To this end we are calling on all staff and student activists across London to come to King’s on Wednesday 20 January to organise for the 26th and beyond.
(This meeting was originally planned for 19th January but Sally Hunt was unable to make this date. Given the scale of the crisis in HE we felt it was important for her to attend).
Jim Wolfreys
President, KCL UCU
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Report on Defend Jobs, Defend Education – London activist meeting:
Called by King’s College London UCU – Supported by No Cuts at King’s & London Region UCU
Over 90 staff and student activists from universities across London and beyond met at King’s College on Tuesday 15th December to discuss ways of giving a united focus to the fight to defend jobs and education across the capital. Many activists had come straight from the 500 strong protest against cuts at London Metropolitan University (which resulted in the entire board of governors resigning later that evening!). Institutions represented included: UCL, Westminster Uni, Westminster College, London College of Communication, Tower Hamlets College, Queen Mary University, Goldsmiths, London Metropolitan, Sussex, King’s College, SOAS, University of the Arts London, and others.
The meeting was introduced by Jim Wolfreys, President of King’s UCU, who explained that it had been called in response to an escalating crisis in higher education caused by government attacks on the one hand and the desire, on the other, of HE management to use the present financial situation as a pretext to restructure their institutions. Staff and students across London needed to join together in defence of education or the situation would fragment, leaving management and the government a free hand to wreck higher education.
A number of speakers stressed the scale of the cuts being imposed, with some facing redundancy themselves. There was a general feeling that we can no longer wait, but that we must act now to stop these cuts. Richard from Tower Hamlets UCU told the meeting how his college went on all out strike for four weeks and successfully fought off all compulsory redundancies, including saving 300 vital ESOL places. He said that the solidarity from trade unionists across London and beyond, who raised over £30,000, was crucial in their victory. During the meeting, Joel from King’s UCU raised a collection and circulated a Christmas card in support of IT workers at Fujitsu due to strike on the 18th December over cuts and attacks on their pensions.
Jesse from UCL UCU, said that because principals and vice-chancellors meet to plan together, we must do the same. In order to organise and co-ordinate further actions an open organising meeting was suggested, provisionally called the ‘London Education Action Committee’, on the 19th January. All those interested in attending should contact: ucu@kcl.ac.uk
The meeting agreed to build and support the mass lobby of parliament called by the national UCU union on the 26th of January, mobilising students and lecturers to gather at the Strand and march on parliament. The meeting also decided to call a rally at King’s in the first few weeks of February to build the campaign and to challenge the marketisation of our education system.
Quoting the demonstrators at London Met, one activist said of the university management and the new movement: “They are the past, we are the future”.
Over 90 staff and student activists from universities across London and beyond met at King’s College on Tuesday 15th December to discuss ways of giving a united focus to the fight to defend jobs and education across the capital. Many activists had come straight from the 500 strong protest against cuts at London Metropolitan University (which resulted in the entire board of governors resigning later that evening!). Institutions represented included: UCL, Westminster Uni, Westminster College, London College of Communication, Tower Hamlets College, Queen Mary University, Goldsmiths, London Metropolitan, Sussex, King’s College, SOAS, University of the Arts London, and others.
The meeting was introduced by Jim Wolfreys, President of King’s UCU, who explained that it had been called in response to an escalating crisis in higher education caused by government attacks on the one hand and the desire, on the other, of HE management to use the present financial situation as a pretext to restructure their institutions. Staff and students across London needed to join together in defence of education or the situation would fragment, leaving management and the government a free hand to wreck higher education.
A number of speakers stressed the scale of the cuts being imposed, with some facing redundancy themselves. There was a general feeling that we can no longer wait, but that we must act now to stop these cuts. Richard from Tower Hamlets UCU told the meeting how his college went on all out strike for four weeks and successfully fought off all compulsory redundancies, including saving 300 vital ESOL places. He said that the solidarity from trade unionists across London and beyond, who raised over £30,000, was crucial in their victory. During the meeting, Joel from King’s UCU raised a collection and circulated a Christmas card in support of IT workers at Fujitsu due to strike on the 18th December over cuts and attacks on their pensions.
Jesse from UCL UCU, said that because principals and vice-chancellors meet to plan together, we must do the same. In order to organise and co-ordinate further actions an open organising meeting was suggested, provisionally called the ‘London Education Action Committee’, on the 19th January. All those interested in attending should contact: ucu@kcl.ac.uk
The meeting agreed to build and support the mass lobby of parliament called by the national UCU union on the 26th of January, mobilising students and lecturers to gather at the Strand and march on parliament. The meeting also decided to call a rally at King’s in the first few weeks of February to build the campaign and to challenge the marketisation of our education system.
Quoting the demonstrators at London Met, one activist said of the university management and the new movement: “They are the past, we are the future”.
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