Richard Hatcher (Birmingham Socialist Teachers' Alliance)
t isn't surprising that education was one
of the themes of the ESF or that the
seminars and workshops attracted large numbers of people. Education is both a key stake and a vital terrain in the struggle for the future of Europe.
For the neoliberals, schools, colleges and universities are the training camps for the future workforce. They are skilling and sorting the right sorts of 'human capital' for the economic battlefield. For the left, education is central to a vision of emancipation based on social need and human development not profit and control.
There were delegates from several NUT associations, including Birmingham and Camden. The only UK teachers union officially represented was NATHE, the college and university teachers union.
Members of the Socialist Teachers Alliance, the left tendency in the National Union of Teachers, played a leading role. It had two platform speakers. Richard Hatcher spoke about privatisation at a session of over 500, and Bernard Regan spoke on struggles in England and Wales at a meeting of about 200. The STA also distributed a leaflet in French and English.
But the ESF meant more than well-attended meetings. The most important thing that STA members achieved was to strengthen existing links and make new ones with teachers unions and rank-and-file organisations in other countries. This will continue after the Paris ESF.
In particular, links were developed with STES (Sindicato Trabajadores y Trabajadoras de la Enseñanza), the second largest teachers union in Spain; with USTEC Stes, the largest teachers union in Catalunya; with Cobas-Scuola, a significant militant teachers union in Italy; and with Ecole Emancipée in France, a large minority tendency within the FSU (Féderation Syndicale Unitaire, the largest French teachers union, with sections in primary, secondary and further/higher education).
In the 'seminars' (in reality mass meetings of several hundred) and workshops we made real progress towards developing a European response to the neoliberal agenda for school education.
One proposal which gained widespread support was for a European Education
NO! Forum the day before the 2004 ESF in London.
The aim would be to involve as many education organisations as possible, including teachers unions and students unions, in the EEF in order to prepare for the education sessions in the ESF itself. Key themes could include:
• Processes of commodification of education, including: its subordination to economic imperatives, the adoption of business models of management, and the increasing commercialisation and privatisation.
• Equality and social justice in education, including: issues of social class, gender and ethnicity, the construction of knowledge, democratic rights and the social functions of education.
School students mobilised last year against the war: what should socialists argue they should be taught in school - and how?
• Resistance to the neoliberal agenda for education, including: campaigns by education workers, students, trade unions, social movements and communities, and campaigns on wider 'anti-globalisation' issues taken up by education workers and students within schools, colleges and universities.
The proposal for an EEF is supported by the teachers unions cited above, and in the UK NATHE has added its support. This will be an important factor in bringing on board other trade union organizations and student organisations in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, in order to build a broadly-based and effective event.
The proposal needs to be agreed by the next all-Europe ESF planning meeting on 6-7 March in London.
page 16 of the scan
16 soclal
European Social Forum Socialist Resistance spoke at nee January 2004