Education for Tomorrow

EDUCATION for TOMORROW FOR THE DEFENCE OF STATE EDUCATION

Vote yes to a new union The new Chief Inspector Durham TAs win review ‘Schools that Work for Everyone’ Green Paper Can a socialist support Brexit?

International news –Cuba, USA,Kenya

‘Pupils aren’t measured through targets and statistics, but encouraged to take as much as they can from their schooling so they can give back to their local communities…if they can do it in Cuba, what’s stopping us here?’– page 13 WINTER 2017

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Editorial Board Anne Brown, Martin Brown, Tony Farsky, Gawain Little, Diane Randall, Hank Roberts.

EDUCATION for TOMORROW is produced by people involved with education of like mind most of the time and certainly on all vital matters of education and politics.

It does not claim to represent the views of any one political party of the working class. Nonetheless its aim is at all times to speak in the interests of all working people.

Fully involved in the struggle for peace and socialism it aims to publicise workers’ achievements and to counter misinformation about past and existing struggles to build socialism.

It is to promote the aims of the organised labour movement in Britain; with common schooling for ALL our children (i.e. a good local state school for every child - truly comprehensive and democratically accountable) together with everything necessary to make this possible, in terms of provision of buildings and equipment, and staff properly trained and properly paid. We therefore support the campaign for one union for all education workers as a step towards achieving this goal.

Our columns are open to all who share these aims - even though they may at times disagree with particular articles and want to say so, and why!

Posted individual copies cost £2

Contents Vote yes to a new union – 3 Out of the Ark – 4 Durham TA’s partial victory – 5

ISSN 2066-9145

Green Paper smokescreen – 7

Website: www.educationfortomorrow.org.uk Published and printed by the EDUCATION for TOMORROW Collective

Socialist support for Brexit – 8

Cover photo: Cuban school students with member of NUT delegation to Cuba, October 2016

International perspectives – 13

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Vote ‘yes’ to a new union The Education for Tomorrow collective is proud to have been a supporter of professional unity in education for many years. Fundamentally, we believe that we are stronger when we stand together, when we speak with one voice.

We also believe that the current system of competitive teacher unions has failed us. While the three main teaching unions – ATL, NASUWT and NUT – expend precious energy competing with one another for members, this detracts from the focus on the main enemy: the neoliberal dogma that has dominated education policy for four decades.

As a result, we have faced the imposition of a curriculum which is not fit for purpose, excessive testing which is educationally and psychologically damaging to our children, and a level of workload which is driving teachers out of the profession.

Throughout this, we have faced a coherent and coordinated attack with divided forces. When the government came for our pensions, the teacher unions were initially divided over whether to take action and then, once they had all done so, whether to suspend action and join government talks. When the government introduced performance-related pay, one union considered action while another declared it was ‘not opposed in principle’ to the concept, just the implementation.

There is, of course, an alternative to this. A single union, speaking on behalf of all teachers, would mean a single, united decision over action, a single overarching strategy which could embrace a variety of tactics, combining them for maximum effect. A single union would not only mean increased bargaining power and industrial strength but it would also mean an authoritative voice for the entire profession, a voice which could not easily be dismissed by government as simply representing vested interests or a militant minority within the profession.

Whilst greater unity would not be the answer to everything, it would certainly be a significant step forward. That is what we believe the upcoming ballot by ATL and NUT represents – a step forward.

The proposal being put by these two unions, arising from special delegate conferences in the autumn term, is not, at this stage, the achievement of professional unity. It will not lead immediately to the creation of one union for all teachers. But it will lead to a new National Education Union representing over half a million education professionals, including well over half the teaching

workforce. It will be the fourth largest union in the TUC and a significant voice for the profession. That would be a significant step forward for teachers and for education.

Of course, these proposals are not without their opposition. There are those who argue that teachers are already too divided, that they could never be represented by a single organisation. But the everyday reality of the staffroom contradicts this.

Teachers face the same issues, whether they are members of the ATL or NUT, and by and large they respond to them in the same ways. If we do not believe we can win a majority of teachers to progressive political positions, how to we expect to win these positions amongst the wider public?

There are those who believe that joining a union for all education professionals will weaken them, or those support staff members who have concerns about being ‘swamped’ through amalgamation with a teacher-only union. But surely the inclusion of other education professionals can only strengthen both our professional voice and our industrial bargaining position. When campaigning for a qualified teacher in every classroom, we will not only represent those qualified teachers but also the very people who can say ‘no’ to being used as teachers on the cheap. The campaign for a clear and distinct professional role for support staff, with their own professional standards and pay to match, strengthens both support staff and teachers.

The key will be to ensure that the new union has adequate structures to enable all members to make their voices heard, and a culture and practice which encourages this. Finally, there will be those who call for a delay, either because they oppose a specific provision of the draft rules or because they want further consultation.

The fact is we cannot afford a delay. We face the most aggressive, reactionary government in a generation. Already, we have seen the mass privatisation of our schools, the destruction of teachers’ terms and conditions, and the distortion of our children’s education. If we want to fight, as our masthead proclaims, for a new vision of education for tomorrow, that fight begins by building unity today.

Gawain Little Chair, NUT Professional Unity Committee

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Out of the Ark – the new Chief Inspector You couldn't make it up. Amanda Spielman has never been a teacher, never worked in a school, never even worked in any other areas covered by Ofsted, yet she is now Ofsted chief executive and Chief Inspector of Schools.

The controversial appointment was made by previous Education Secretary Nicky Morgan and accepted by Justine Greening, her successor in the job. An accountant by profession, Amanda Spielman has been associated with the Ark (Absolute return for kids) academy chain since 2004.

Kevin Courtney, NUT General Secretary, commented that to have as a Chief Inspector a person with no teaching experience and who had been heavily implicated in the academy programme called into question both her impartiality and her suitability for the job. ATL General Secretary Mary Bousted said: 'while the ATL wished her every success, she had never taught, never led a school or a public institution and as Chair of Ofqual had presided over qualification "chaos" in secondary schools.'

The House of Commons Education Select Committee was, if anything, even more forthright.

Having heard her promote Ark and compare it to Ofsted with its eight regional offices covering the whole of England, and describing her vision of her role in the job being 'raising standards, improving lives' (the Ofsted mission statement letterhead) it unanimously agreed that it was unable to support her candidacy for the job, considering that she lacked direct experience of any areas inspected by Ofsted, lacked experience of running any public body remotely as large as Ofsted, lacked vision, and lacked any understanding of children's social services.

Amanda Spielman worked in investment strategy at Kleinwort Benson, KPMG and Nomura, and from 2004 to 2011 was research and development director for Ark, and then advisor to its international arm whilst also chairing Ofqual until taking up the Ofsted post. Ark is an international children's charity set up in 2002. It currently runs 34 academies in London, Birmingham, Hastings and Portsmouth. Of the eight members of the board, five are hedge fund managers and none of them have any background in education. While local authority schools face funding cuts of around eight per cent, Ark

academies are protected by their sponsors. Ark schools received £3.6 million in private funds last year - nearly £106,000 for each school in the chain and whose test and exam results are held up as an example to the others.

It's not philanthropy or guilt that makes hedge fund managers set up charities like Ark. It's greed.

The chair of Ark is Paul Marshall, whose hedge fund has a diverse portfolio including Pearson PLC, Scholastic Corporation and the American private equity firm KKR which is heavily involved at the cutting edge of edu-business. KKR has big stakes in Cognita, a chain of private schools, and Laureate Education, which runs more than 80 for-profit colleges around the world. It also invests in Tarena International, 'an innovative education platform combining live-distance instruction, classroom-based tutoring and online learning modules' for students in China.

Selling IT and software to schools around the world is an expanding market, estimated to be worth up to nine billion US dollars a year. Testing children is big business and it's increasingly computerised. Those test results and school performance indicators are becoming ever more frequent and crucial and the results need analysis, so these edu-businesses provide 'learning analytics and data management services'. Education is reduced to quantifiable data.

Later this year Ark will be opening the Pioneer Academy in Barnet, North London, where it will be developing 'blended learning' described as 'the combination of traditional classroom based teaching with online learning'. Blended learning was pioneered in the USA where it's selling point has been 'improved cost efficiency', meaning a 25 per cent saving on staffing costs.

An accountant is now Chief Inspector of Schools and head of Ofsted. What could be clearer?

Driving down the cost of state education and making sure that business can make bigger profits is this government's priority for education.

Martin Brown

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County Durham for their continued support. It has made such a difference to all of us to know that the majority of parents were behind us and that they understood why we had to take strike action.They know what a difference we make and they want us to be able to stay in our jobs.’

Durham teaching assistants win review

Worrying ignorance on asbestos in schools A shocking lack of consistency across different local authority areas over the continuing presence of deadly asbestos in schools is revealed in responses to recent Freedom of Information requests, and should set alarm bells ringing across central and local government.

Figures released as a result of Freedom of Information requests submitted by Lucie Stephens to all local authorities in England and Wales, paint a disturbing picture of complacency, evasion of responsibility and lack of knowledge. Lucie’s mother, Sue Stephens, died of mesothelioma in June this year and wanted the removal of asbestos from schools to be her legacy.

The figures reveal great variation in the management of asbestos, with some local authorities claiming not to know how many of their schools contain asbestos, some withholding the information and others stating that full responsibility lies with schools themselves. There were 99 reported incidents of asbestos exposure in school premises between 2011 and 2016 — that’s likely to be a massive understatement as these are just known potential exposure incidents. And 220 school employees/ former employees and former pupils have pursued a claim for compensation during this time with over £10 million being paid out.

Commenting on the situation, John McClean, chair of Joint Union Asbestos (JUAC), said: ‘What this information reveals is that the government’s policy of managing asbestos in schools is simply not working and is putting children and staff at risk.’

The JUAC called on the government to: undertake a national audit of asbestos in schools; • • set out a long term strategy for the removal of asbestos from schools; and • ensure that the Health and Safety Executive has the funding it needs to inspect schools.

Two thousand teaching assistants, members of public service union Unison or the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), returned to work in the second week of January.

Blaming Tory government cuts, Durham Labour council had planned to sack them on January 1 and re-employ them on new contracts with pay covering term-time only. Their jobs are now to be reviewed. They have won a reprieve from a 23 per cent pay cut but said yesterday that their struggle goes on.

Their campaign of action, including strikes, won widespread support from parents, the public and the labour and trade union movement. The assistants set up the County Durham Teaching Assistants Activists Committee to lead their campaign.

The council has now agreed to ‘enter into a full review of the roles and responsibilities of teaching assistants. Teaching assistant and campaign spokeswoman Trish Fay said: ‘This is not over. They have only suspended, not withdrawn, the new contracts while negotiations are under way. But we do now have the opportunity to work with the council to review our roles, which have changed massively over the last five years.

However, if we don’t see real progress in the next few months, teaching assistants, Unison and ATL are clear that we will not hesitate to reinstate our industrial action to ensure we get a fair solution for all teaching assistants.’

Campaign committee organiser and teaching assistant Anne Richardson said: ‘We would like to thank the public and, particularly, the parents of

LRD fact service 8/12/16

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Schools that Work for Everyone Change of direction or a smokescreen?

When the draft legislation to implement enforced academisation contained in 'Education Excellence Everywhere' was withdrawn by the Government last year, some wise teacher trade unionists warned that this did not signify a 'U' turn but a tactical retreat. The Government’s long term goal remained to complete the privatisation of state education.

Following the change in Prime Minister and Education Secretary came the new Green Paper: 'Schools that Work for Everyone'. The scale of opposiion to the proposals, especially those on expanding selection has become clear. The Government will publish its response to the consultation later this year.

Independent schools directly assisting the state-funded sector The Green Paper proposes that independent schools should become academy sponsors and/ or should provide significantly more free places at these schools. Other suggestions include supporting continuing professional development in state schools, providing teaching in minority subjects, offering access to facilities and joining multi-academy trust boards. There is also reference to the creation of highly selective sixth form colleges.

The proposal that independent schools provide direct support to state-schools rests on the assumption that independent schools are more effective than state-schools. This is not the case, once factors like social class and poverty are factored in.

Those that get ‘good’ results do so primarily because they are both academically and socially selective.

The Green Paper suggests selecting small numbers of students from the state sector for access to independent schools themselves or establishing highly selective state schools set up by independent schools. This kind of selection is damaging to the state sector as a whole and will do nothing to raise standards across the system as a whole. There is already too much segregation in our education system. It is well established that schools greatly benefit from the presence of able and motivated students – to remove these students from state schools would lower rather than raise standards.

There is no evidence that independent schools have the expertise or the capacity to make a significant contribution to the infinitely more complex task of running state schools and working with students of all abilities and families from all parts of society. To suggest that there is some kind of superior expertise in independent school is insulting and patronising. Moreover to suggest that public funds would pay the inflated costs of attending an independent school would be an outrageous use of money at a time when schools are experiencing severe cuts in funding The sponsorship proposals are more about the failure of the government to find the number of sponsors it is seeking than about the real expertise of independent schools.

Grammar schools There are four main proposals, but the proposal to lift the existing ban on new grammar schools has received most publicity. There is a broad consensus that stretches from the left to many within the Conservative Party that allowing grammar schools to expand would have the effect of further damaging local, non-selective schools, worsening socioeconomic segregation and lowering standards overall. OECD evidence is quite clear that segregating pupils in this way depresses rather than raises standards.

By definition, selective schools deny opportunities to pupils in non-selective schools. They deny them the stimulus of working with their highest attaining peers. They deny them access to the best resources. And they identify them as failures at 11 in a way that is massively cruel and damaging.

All schools should reflect in their intake the socio-economic make-up of their locality. In reality too many supposedly non-selective academies and faith schools achieve an intake that does not.

With so much evidence against selection and so much opposition why has Theresa May – with a slim parliamentary majority – chosen to pick this fight? It is possible that the grammar school proposals are a distraction from the other policy proposals.

Other proposals include; Independent schools directly assisting the state-funded sector, A direct role in school improvement for universities and the delivery of 'more good school places' through faith schools.

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• the encouragement of experimentation and innovative approaches, rather than prescription; • the central notion that schools could learn from each other; • the weakest schools receiving the most funding generally spent on additional staff or development activity; and • perhaps most effectively, the recognition that individuals and school communities tend to thrive when they feel trusted, supported and encouraged.

A direct role in school improvement for universities The proposal is that in exchange for being allowed to raise fees beyond £9000, universities should be required to sponsor academies or set up Free Schools.

Universities should focus on using their academic expertise to support all schools in their area through initial teacher training and continuing professional development and through outreach activities such as master classes and taster sessions.

There is already a lot of good practice in these areas that can be built on.

Sponsoring individual schools is inappropriate because it narrows the engagement of universities in the school system to a small minority of schools. Nor is there any reason to suppose that universities have any particular expertise in managing all ability schools. Again this smacks of the governments desperation when facing a shortage of sponsors.

Universities should be independent of government and should not be bullied into these kinds of actions.

'Schools that Work for Everyone' is a document that focuses on the most privileged pupils and omits any mention of special schools. If the aims of the green paper are genuine, instead of attempting to bribe and incentivise inappropriate institutions to take over the running of state schools, they would be looking at the success of the City Challenge programme.

MB Sources:

‘More good school places' through faith schools

Labour Research, November 2016 www.socialisteducationalassociation.org

Newly established faith schools (academies and free schools) are currently only allowed to reserve 50 per cent of places for children of that faith. The government proposes to abolish this restriction – which effectively means that faith schools can discriminate on religious lines.

The growth of single faith schooling is a deeply alarming feature of English education. The potential for undermining social cohesion and good race relations is very great. Almost no other country in the world allows religious segregation in its state funded schools. The priority should be to reduce segregation not to allow it to increase.

The City Challenge initiative: evidence that schools can work for everyone Evaluation of the City Challenge programmes that ran from 2003 to 2011, concluded that they had been very successful in improving schools in the key areas of London, West Midlands and Greater Manchester.

Characteristics central to the success included: • the encouragement of sharing best practice across local authority boundaries that aimed to unite schools, parents, community organisations and others behind the initiative; • the aim of improving all schools across each area, not just the lowest attaining, with school collaboration central to the programme – although the most intensive work was in schools that were underperforming;

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Can a socialist support Brexit? (Part 1) The short answer is yes. The late Tony Benn and Bob Crow were two who notably did. Those of us who do can receive a response ranging from incredulity to allegations of racism, xenophobia, being a ‘Little Englander’ and of supporting right-wing Tories who want to take away our rights. The retorts are simply name-calling – and not normally accompanied by any depth of analysis.

Right-wing Tories do not need Brexit to be busily fighting, and unfortunately achieving to a considerable degree, the removal of our rights and the worsening of our pay and conditions. All of this has happened while we were, as we still are, within the European Union (EU). How so many trade unionists can say that being in the EU is the source of our rights and the EU has, and will, protect them, I find bemusing. For example, hasn’t the massive increase in zero hours contracts occurred on the EU watch?

Haven’t our working hours lengthened whilst our pay and conditions have declined, whilst those of the rich and superrich have gone through the roof? What we have won or defended, we have done through our struggle. Teachers strike action, especially joint action, mitigated the worst of our pensions cut – not the EU. However, we need to go deeper in our analysis in looking at the facts, and look at what the real purpose of the establishment of the EU and its precursors actually was. Some argue it was to stop war in Europe. There has been war in Europe – Yugoslavia and Cyprus. The EU is now seeking to establish its own nuclear enabled army. If it wanted to seek to ensure peace in Europe it would declare neutrality as Switzerland and Sweden did which kept their countries out of the Second World War. Another good idea would be the abolishing our paltry nuclear force (paltry compared to the US and Russia’s) which only serves to make us a Russian target in the event of war between the US and Russia or the US against Russia and China.

to adopt a common currency, the Euro, and to aim for full union, not just economic union, but also political union.

Free movement of capital Let’s look first at the free movement of capital.

Margaret Thatcher abolished exchange controls in 1979. The effect of this was to make the export of capital far easier, and there was a massively increased exodus. In ‘Re-examining The Removal Of Exchange Control by the Thatcher Government in 1979’ Daisuke Ikemoto writes: ‘The abolition of exchange controls reduced the role of the state in economic management and increased competitive pressures for business.’

‘Exchange controls abolition also changed the balance of power between labour and capital.

Due to liberalisation of international capital movements, companies management teams came under increasing pressure to make bigger profits and not to concede generous pay settlements to trade unions. At the same time, they also obtained the option of moving their business out of the UK if the companies wage costs were judged too high. For Trade Minister John Nott, the dismantling of exchange control was an essential part of the Government’s economic strategy to reduce the state intervention in the economy and break the power of the trade unions.’

Right from the start, the plan of those at the top was to create an economic and political entity that did not just support free movement of capital within that entity, but globally.

Europe Isn’t Working, a book written by journalists Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson (published

by Yale University Press 2016) contains many enlightening quotes as well as much relevant information.They write: ‘However, as Rawi Abdelal of the Harvard Business School notes, Germany was not interested in solely removing barriers to capital movements inside the Community – which would have made good logical sense as an aspect of the Common Market – but with everyone else as well, the so-called erga omnes (towards everyone) principle. ‘The result was profoundly important, for the European Union ended up with the most liberal rules imaginable. Europe’s rules oblige members to liberate all capital flows, no matter the source or direction.’ Germany, he writes, was determined

Main purposes of the EU What were and are the main purposes of the EU? From its inception in 1973 as the common market, the EEC, now EU, it is to have 1) free movement of capital 2) free movement of labour within its borders 3) free movement of goods and services within its borders.

(It is termed a free market. What it is, is a customs union.) n addition, on its journey it has sought to abolish borders between countries; the Schengen Agreement, 8

that there would be no ‘fortress Europe’ in capital market terms and that financial globalisation would be embraced more or less unconditionally.

Elliott and Atkinson continue, ‘It is a mark of how far Delors had moved in a few short years that he devoted an early part of his first presidency of the European Commission (1985-88) to an attempt to remove all barriers to the free movement of capital.

Abdelal notes that in the early part of 1986, the Commission President was working on plans to oblige member states to liberalise capital movements among themselves and with the outside world. What would once have been a hugely controversial subject was agreed in two years, and in the June 1988 capital movement directive mandated that there be no obstacles to transfers or transactions of any kind.’

They add, ‘If the left’s heady romance with monetary union had required the sacrifice of exchange controls and most protectionist trade measures, the third demand would have proved a dealbreaker: a de facto prohibition on the creation of a new state-owned enterprises, other than in an emergency, and strict rules on how existing publicly owned entities were to be financed.

And continuing, ‘Henceforce, nationalisation would be permissible only if the entity in question were treated on an armslength commercial basis, and public investment would have to meet the same criteria as private investment. If it were inconceivable that a privatesector investor would have put in the money, then the state was barred from doing so. Furthermore, any advantage derived from state assistance of any kind would have to be ‘given back’ further down the road’.

The impact of the unrestricted movement of finance capital i.e. not just within the EU but a global requirement of EU membership has been well documented in numerous books and studies.

Of capital coming into the UK a good book is Private Island - Why Britain Now Belongs To Someone Else

by James Meek (published by Verso 2014). His book analyses it from looking at all the privatisations first and there is a long list.

‘When Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives came to power in Britain in 1979, much of the economy, and almost all of its infrastructure, was in state hands…How much of the economy? A third of all homes were rented from the state. The health service, most schools, the Armed Forces, prisons, roads, bridges and

streets, water, sewers, the national grid, power stations, the phone and postal systems, gas supply, coal mines, the railways, refuse collection, the airports, many of the ports, local and long-distance buses, freight lorries, nuclear fuel reprocessing, air traffic control, much of the car, ships and aircraft building industry, most of the steel factories, British Airways, oil companies, Cable & Wireless, the aircraft engine makers Rolls-Royce, the arms makers Royal Ordnance, the ferry company Sealink, the Trustee Savings Bank, Girobank bank, technology companies Ferranti and Inmos, medical technology firm Amersham International and many others…In the past 30 years, this commonly owned economy, this people’s portion of the island, has to a greater or lesser degree become private. Millions of council houses have been sold to their owners or to housing associations. Most roads and streets are still under public control, but privatisation has reached deep into the NHS, state schools, the prison service and the military. The remainder was privatised by Thatcher and her successors. By the time she left office, she boasted, 60 per cent of the old state industries had private owners – and that was before the railways and the electricity system went under the hammer.

All of this has been done and the process is still continuing, in particular in education under the academies programme under/within the EU. They have not, and are not, saving us or protecting us.

Meek then analyses what happened after these huge swathes of state assets were handed over to the privateers. He looked specifically at six areas – privatised mail, privatised railways, privatised water, privatised electricity, privatised health and privatised homes. His analysis of the degree of foreign ownership is what leads to the subtitle of his book Why Britain Now Belongs To Someone Else. Does foreign ownership matter? Ownership gives control and foreign ownership means foreign control. The history of Britain well illustrates the implications of foreign ownership of countries and territories.

At one time the British Empire was the biggest empire in history. It was one on which the sun never set and as John Newsinger writes in his excellent People’s History Of The British Empire, The Blood Never Dried (Bookmarks publications second edition 2013).

Our ownership and domination of the world through the unrestricted export of capital and goods, and the destruction of indigenous foreign industries by force of arms as necessary, led to millions being

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exploited, starved, enslaved and slaughtered. It also led to wars with up and coming rivals, and eventually, to campaigns and wars of national liberation of subjected peoples.

Despite pretensions, Britain is no longer a world power. As Johan Van Overtveldt writes in The End Of The Euro: The Uneasy Future Of The European Union (published by B2 2011), ‘As the twenty-first century advances, the United States and China are the only viable contenders for the top position, distantly followed by India, Japan, Brazil, Russia and Germany. France’s place is in the third tier with Indonesia, Mexico, Iran, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the united Kingdom’.

The UK is being de-industrialised as rapidly as its remaining industry and other capital assets e.g. hotels, shopping complexes, housing are brought up by foreign super-rich individuals and companies and profits made exiting the country.

China is the latest country buying up swathes of Britain and much else around the world. (How the tables have turned since the British Empire used armed force to force China to take opium imports.)

Theresa May raised national security questions over the part Chinese, alongside the French, ownership of Britain’s biggest nuclear power station. A brief but firm response from China that they would not take such a response kindly and the implication for Britain of China using its enormous economic clout in its response, meant May caved in with alacrity. In principle she had a point. A foreign power owning, or even part owning, your biggest nuclear power plant is a potential security risk especially with any potential for armed conflict. As John Pilger’s seminal documentary The Coming War With China showed, US imperialism is busy encircling China with bases, troops ships, submarines and aircraft in an alliance with other far Eastern countries, in particular an ever more belligerent Japan. Serious territorial disputes exist between China and Japan. Britain as the US’s poodle will be expected to follow the US’s lead as with Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, with only a massive public outcry pressurising many MPs into voting against full-on armed intervention on the ground in Syria. There has, nonetheless, been covert intervention and overt bombing with the aim, looking increasingly unlikely, of achieving yet another regime change, irrespective of the consequences to country and people.

The fact that many companies, or individuals have global reach – Trump for example has over 100 companies doing business in Russia, – does not change the problems regarding the import or export of capital, the loss of independence for a country, the loss

of its industrial base, the outflow of capital, the outflow of profits not to be reinvested in the country.

A part of this outflow of capital is known as outsourcing. In relation to the United States the reasons for this and its consequences are extremely well explained and documented in the book How The Economy Was Lost – the War Of The Worlds by Paul Craig Roberts (published by Counterpunch and AK Press 2010). He explains, ‘Corporations offshore their production, because they can more cheaply produce abroad what they sell to Americans.’(And the rest of the world of course). ‘A country that offshores its own production is unable to balance its trade’. The US is on a path to economic Armageddon. Shorn of industry, dependent on offshore manufactured goods and services… The US will become a Third World country’.

The UK is on a similar trajectory with the same policies. This has again been well documented by Elliott and Atkinson’s previous book.

For Britain the EU (and its Euro - Luckily as almost all who previously advocated and supported it now admit, we did not take that crucial EU step along their plank of full political and economic union i.e. becoming a single Superstate and adopt the Euro) has accelerated this globalising and outsourcing of UK industry.

Roberts continues, ‘The advent of offshoring has made it possible for US firms using First World capital and technology to produce goods and services for the US market with foreign labour. The result is to separate Americans incomes from the production of the goods and services that they consume … ‘This new development, often called globalisation, allows cheap foreign labour to work with the same capital, technology and business know-how as US workers. The foreign workers are now as productive as Americans with the difference being that the large excess supply of labour that overhang labour markets in China and India keeps wages in these countries low.

Labour that is equally productive but paid a fraction of the way is a magnet for Western capital and technology.’

Further offshore outsourcing, starting with call centres, is now rapidly spreading and moving up the value chain to any work that can be done electronically. India with its increasingly large supply of well-qualified people with a good command of English. Bangalore, a high tech research centre now rivalling Silicon Valley is

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now one of the New York cities of Asia, massively developed on the basis of capital export and outsourcing.

extent.

Regarding labour, i.e. workers, we have to remember workers are human capital. Say someone studies and is trained by a country to the highest level Free movement of Labour of oncology surgeon. Is it right that they can, Having touched on some of the adverse effects of the individually and those similarly qualified, simply up unrestricted free movement of capital in and out of a stakes and go to the US where salaries are considerably country, now let me turn to the vexed issue of higher? Is it right that they should get this highly immigration, or rather migration for one country’s qualified human capital, to the cost of which they have immigrant is another country’s emigrant. Massive contributed nothing, and others, us in Britain, have propaganda/advertising etc. has changed many borne a collective cost? Is it right that developed people’s understanding and beliefs in Britain about countries, asset strip developing the expectation or indeed right countries? This became a to be able to live in any other problem with teachers in the country not simply the other UK, particularly London, when EU countries as is the situation large numbers were being at present regarding. poached by recruiters going to In growing up in Britain Caribbean countries to entice I became aware, as did them to come and work as everyone else at the time, that teachers in the UK mainly in Australia was keen to have London (a similar process went immigrants from the UK and on wholesale with nurses). Steve there was a system where you Sinnott, the then NUT General could do this for just £10. Even Secretary who tragically died then there was no freedom for early, was very concerned at this all to do so. There were asset stripping of the valuable numerous barriers, (including a human capital of poorer controversial one of no blacks), countries. regarding qualifications, health The late Bob Crow – a socialist who supported The situation regarding largeBrexit and job qualification. I am scale immigration into Britain Bermudian. I was born there and its effect is not a new one, and my father was Bermudian. Even so, I am not and the conclusion of its undoubted ability to hold simply allowed to return as I like to live and work down or even lower wages, and also cause divisions there. I would have to apply for a work permit, and to within the workforce the better to divide and rule, is live there permanently for residency. To get a job in not new either. Engels wrote, Bermuda a Bermudian employer has to show that ‘Irish immigration to England is getting more there is not a suitable present Bermudian resident who alarming each day. It is estimated that an can do it and able to take the job. This makes and average of 50,000 Irish arrive each year, the keeps Bermuda a high wage economy and a low number this year (1847) is already over 220,000. unemployment economy.

In September 345 were arriving daily and in Unrestricted immigration for Bermuda October this figure increased to 511. This would be both disastrous for the Bermudian economy means the competition between workers will and practically ridiculous if not impossible. It is only 21 become stronger … it has been, calculated that square miles in size. The US, despite its size, does not more than 1 million have already migrated’. have an unrestricted policy regarding immigration.

Engels quotes Thomas Carlyle, Indeed it is quite strict whilst still being a country with ‘… the condition of the lower multitude of a present policy that encourages immigrants and English labourers approximates more and makes use of it, or rather employers make use of it, to more to that of the Irish, competing with them employ skilled and highly skilled labour at wages and in all the markets: that whosever labour,… will salaries that are below indigenous and naturalised be done not at the English price but at an American citizens present or past wage levels. Its leaky approximation of the Irish price; at a price borders allow large numbers to enter the country and superior as yet to the Irish, that is superior to labour market illegally enabling employers to exploit scarcity of potatoes for 30 weeks yearly, them by paying low wages and having worse conditions. This happens also in Britain, but to a lesser 11

superior, yet hourly, with the arrival of every new Steamboat, sinking nearer to an equality with that’.

Engels then says, ‘Carlyle is perfectly right … Nothing else is therefore possible than that, as Carlyle says, the wages of the English working man should be forced down further and further in every branch in which the Irish compete with him.

And these branches are many’.

‘It is easy to understand how the degrading position of the English workers, engendered by our modern history and its immediate consequences, has been still more degraded by the presence of Irish competition’.

He explains that this is because the Irish immigrants were prepared to tolerate worse and more overcrowded housing, cheaper and worse food – overwhelmingly just potatoes – poorer clothing and generally a worse standard of living. This is the case today with many immigrants tolerating being forced economically into inadequate and grossly overcrowded accommodation and an altogether grossly lower standard of living.

And Marx writes, ‘In dragging down the working class in England still further by forced immigration of poor Irish people, the English bourgeoisie has not merely exploited Irish poverty. It has also divided the proletariat into two hostile camps… In fact in all the major industrial centres of England there is a profound antagonism between the Irish and the English proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who brings down his wages and standards of living.’

The First International And After by Marx (published by Penguin 1974).

Employers and our Government like and indeed often ferment this division as a divide and rule strategy of clear economic benefit to our rulers, but also of political benefit in misidentifying the main enemy as immigrants, rather than those who are running our increasingly corrupt and defunct system.

In talking about immigrants, I make a distinction about asylum seekers. Lenin was a temporary one, and Marx, in his later years, a permanent one. Of course, if someone’s life is seriously in danger we ought to, alongside other countries, give them refuge. However, there needs to be far more focus and concentration on stopping the origin of so many being caused by wars. It is insufficient to analyse the whole situation as one of

they need our help, let them in, they are welcome. That is until we discuss, consider, understand and up our game in opposing more forcefully imperialist aggression in foreign countries which is creating ever more.

At present there is a growing shortage of teachers. One way Government is hoping to deal with this is by removing the need for teachers to be qualified, but another way they hoping to deal with this is by importing EU nationals. In the Observer 1.01.17 Daniel Boffey writes, ‘During a time when the Government has repeatedly failed to meet its teacher recruitment targets, data suggests foreign nationals have increasingly been drafted in to fill in gaps. Department of Education figures show to close to 5000 teachers from EU countries qualified to teach last year, up from just over 2000 in 2010. The largest numbers coming from Spain, Greece, Poland and Romania. The number coming from Greece has shot up more than six fold … ‘Yet despite the influx the DfE has failed to hit necessary recruitment levels for the fifth year in a row it was revealed last week.’

‘Shadow Schools Minister Mike Kane said he feared that the Government’s policy on EU nationals could further jeopardise schools ability to fill shortages.’

It is the government’s policy of failing to train enough UK nationals that is the problem. And this is the result of lowering teachers’ pay and worsening their conditions. The article continues, ‘Professor John Howson, a Government Advisor on teacher recruitment, said that in recent years, with pressures on funding, headteachers had looked to teachers from Eastern Europe in particular to ease staff shortages. He said: ‘I suspect that quite a lot of recruitment agencies have been operating particularly in places like Romania and Bulgaria where the standards in teaching maths are probably quite high.’

But, their living standards are lower and therefore their preparedness to work for less. As to the standards for maths ‘probably’ being quite high, the standards of teaching in Finland are definitely high in all areas. We won’t be getting them from there though, even though they are in the EU. Their pay and conditions are infinitely better than here.

Next time I will look at the problems of socalled ‘free trade’.

Hank Roberts in a personal capacity 12

International perspectives student art created in a special school for physically disabled children. We were enthused as we cheered on a music and dance show put together by the pupils of an arts school. We were enthralled as we listened to piano and flute recitals played on instruments teachers had to ship at great expense from China, as no country closer will allow the trade of musical instruments with Cuba. But most of all we were amazed – amazed at the whole experience of education in Cuba. In a country which has so little, the importance of education is felt by all. Education is celebrated and respected for education’s sake. Pupils aren’t measured through targets and statistics, but encouraged to take as much as they can from their schooling so they can give back to their local communities. Art and music are appreciated and enjoyed, pupils with special educational needs are prioritised and nurtured, and all this is paid for by the state.

Ultimately, the British and Cuban education systems are not so very different; British schools cherish their pupils, teachers do their best to ensure that all pupils have access to the best resources – the priority of the British school is to enable pupils to achieve their full potential. However, in Cuba it seems like these ideals are tackled in a different way, a way that keeps the focus on the joy of learning in the classroom and doesn’t take time away from educators to make them ‘prove’ their worth through data manipulation. Cuban teachers didn’t report feeling stressed or under pressure when undertaking their daily work, whereas in Britain we face a massive teacher shortage as newly qualified teachers realise that the job at hand isn’t what they signed up for. The Cuban government’s education department is made up entirely of teachers, both working and retired, and it is these officials with first-hand experience of the classroom who call the shots in terms of education policy. As such, the Cuban system of education is far more pragmatic and is driven forward through teacher led innovation to benefit students, rather than party led political spin to benefit whoever’s currently sitting in Number 10.

Certainly, the NUT delegation to Cuba was undoubtedly the trip of a life time and allowed us to witness the very end of a period of history that started back in 1959 with the Cuban Revolution. It demonstrated the power and the potential of a

Cuba When I travelled to Cuba on a delegation with the National Union of Teachers I had no idea we would be there for the end of an era. Our trip in October, 2016, allowed us to experience Cuba in the last few weeks of Fidel Castro’s life. Upon our return to the UK, enthusiastic , inspired, and keen to tell anyone who would listen about our amazing experiences in Cuba’s schools, we had no idea that Cuba would soon be world news’ ‘hot topic’ following the death of the 90 year old ‘El Comandante’. However, whilst this undeniably significant event got people talking about Cuba, I was dismayed to witness the nature of media coverage a number of news outlets awarded the island. Many news reports painted a picture of a nation under the thumb of an overbearing, tyrannical overlord, brainwashing the people into parroting Cold War style propaganda messages and forcing them to live in poverty. All very Live and Let Die I must say.

What most of the world news didn’t deem to show the general public is the Cuba I know, the Cuba we experienced during our delegation visit.

There’s been nothing on the BBC to highlight that Cuba has the second lowest illiteracy rate in the world, with 99.8 per cent of its population able to adequately read and write, despite being classed as a Third World country. Cuba’s ever expanding work in biochemistry has also been somewhat brushed over by the majority of the West’s media moguls, who don’t seem to think that a country that has been internationally recognised on numerous occasions for its outstanding work in research and development in health care, despite suffering the economic limitations of the ongoing American blockade, is a newsworthy item. Indeed, despite having spent a week in a number of Cuban schools, working and talking with Cuban people and exploring the Cuban education system I am still having trouble convincing people that there is more to Cuba than its James Bond-esque history of missiles, espionage and communist ideology.

Visiting a range of schools in Havana highlighted the many varied aspects of education available in Cuba, and drove home the importance of vitality and creativity in modern schooling. We were inspired as we were shown dynamic pieces of 13

different type of education system and forced us, as modern classroom practitioners, to consider how best we can put our very good intentions surrounding our own education system into practice. Surely, if they can do it in Cuba, what’s stopping us here?

after him in Havana. Well, we know of him now, and we have seen, first hand, his legacy. Marti wrote and spoke of the importance of education in the late 19th century. Castro espoused that belief and made education the cornerstone of the Cuban revolution. Of course, Cubans are open about the way education is used as a mechanism for embedding the political ideology of the revolution.

But Cuban doors are wide open. For any sceptics who might wish to doubt the integrity of the Cuban education system, just take a look.

We were welcomed unconditionally. Our visit took us to a range of educational institutions and union offices where we were encouraged to engage in intercambio (interchange, dialogue, debate) to question this ideology. It was hard to challenge the ideology since we had just been shown some excellent teaching and learning in classes using the most basic of materials. The passion for learning was palpable. The standards were high.

This commitment to learning remains central to modern Cuba. Education is highly valued and free from cradle to grave. The Cuban government spends ten per cent of its GDP on education compared with the UK: four per cent and the USA: two per cent. And all of this under the yoke of the US embargo which prevents Cuba from trading with just about anybody who has business interests in the US – that’s a lot of business Cuba can’t do!

Our delegation felt the effects of this embargo: hot water in our hotel wasn’t working for three days.

Then the hot water was plentiful but towels hard to come by. Such is life in a country which must make do with so very little.

The NUT delegation was made up largely of teachers who face the challenge of motivating young people in a climate of high-stakes testing and its inherent sense of failure. Cuba felt remarkably freed from this. Education is seen as an essential feature of citizenship, a fundamental right, an integral part of life. The students we met were taking full advantage of this – they were learning, and learning well. We teachers from the UK were deeply impressed by their industry. To be doing so much with so little – it was, quite frankly, humbling.

Mari Burton (A history, PSE and EPQ teacher in a West Sussex secondary school and sixth form.

She is an NUT Rep for her school and CoYouth NUT Rep for West Sussex)

Cuba a country of simply outrageous contradictions: a socialist state just 90 miles from Florida; a desperately poor country but with some of the world’s most impressive 20th century architecture; grand boulevards and urban squalor; social pain coupled with exuberance and joy. But the one thing about which there is no contradiction is the commitment to education in Cuba. When Fidel Castro took the stage at the United Nations in 1960, fresh from the revolution, he claimed Cuba would achieve 100 per cent literacy in a year. A grand ambition, one that has thwarted all other developed world nation states. But it didn’t thwart the newly liberated Cuban people, though 40 per cent of them were not literate at that time. Through a truly miraculous endeavour, using children as young as 8eight as teachers, the Cubans became readers and writers, all of them, in a year, just as Castro had promised.

‘To educate is to give man the keys to the world, which are independence and love, and to give him strength to journey on his own, light of step, a spontaneous and free being.’ - Jose Marti, Cuban independence leader, 1853-1895 Many of us on the recent UK NUT delegation to Cuba had never heard of Jose Marti before stepping off the plane at the airport named

Dot Higgin (A high school English teacher)

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hazarding and fundamentally damaging our children.

Both reports in the Morning Star (difficult to adequately summarise here) tell us of a ‘different world’. One teacher notices that the Cuban education system ‘creates confident students’, and another notices that ‘Cuban kids have the arts woven into their school curriculum’; one notices that parents are given time off from work to attend PTA meetings (without loss of earnings!), and both teachers from the UK notice that Cuba maintains a record of 99 per cent literacy, that was one of the earliest achievements of the 1959 revolution!

Despite the expectation that pupils, teachers and parents are all expected to ‘give of their best’, questions regarding ‘stress’ are barely understood.

And if parents can’t understand their child’s homework, the parent gets help at the school to reach the necessary level!

One thing above all is evident; Cuba is undeniably part of this modern world, but very different from the hazardous world of capitalism with which we are, perhaps, a little too familiar!

Educative contrasts Over Christmas weekend, 2016, The Guardian newspaper published an ‘open letter’ to HM government, with signatures of 30 specialists concerned with education, psychology and child development.

The letter pointed out how ‘children’s health and well-being are being undermined by … a hyper-competitive schooling system and the unremitting commercialisation of childhood’, combined with over-emphasis on screen-based learning and, in the early years, a lack of outdoor play.

It goes on to say that, as a consequence of those pressures, ‘physical … and mental health problems are approaching crisis levels’, and the signatories point out that these same problems have worsened since they were first identified over ten years ago…with no remediation attempted!

The Boxing Day letter was accompanied by a half-page article, by a Guardian staff writer, that accurately amplifies these concerns. Notably, psychologist and educational consultant Dr Richard House here points out ‘It’s nothing short of scandalous (that policymakers have done nothing) since Sue Palmer first flagged up (her book Toxic Childhood) … historians will doubtless look back on the current era as one of political child abuse,’ Now, that last phrase from Dr House should send a shiver up the spine of anyone who has anything to do with child education, but you may wonder why, in the context of a ‘toxic childhood’, I should now quote from another (recentlydeceased) doctor (of Law), Fidel Castro?

Firstly, let’s see what he had to say; from the USA, over the years have come vague allegations of the inhumane upbringing of Cuban children, including personal child abuse. Fidel’s reply was quite simple, that ‘all the gold in the whole world is not worth a hair on the head of any Cuban child’.

Quite co-incidentally, a group of NUT members had recently visited Cuba, obviously to look at Cuban children within their school surroundings; one report appeared in the Morning Star over the weekend of 24th/25th Dec, 2016, i.e. before the Guardian’s ‘open letter’ and article; and a second report on that same visit to Cuba, essentially complementary to the first, followed over the weekend of Jan 7th/8th.

The Morning Star has a miniscule readership, markedly different (in most perceptions), compared with that of the Guardian, which is actually quite a pity! For the eyewitness reports by two teachers, of their visit to Cuban schools, tell a very different version of the ‘modern world’ that is believed to be

Roger Fletcher

USA Trump’s proposed education cuts The US affiliates to Education International (EI), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), agree that the proposed US$20 billion cut to the education budget by President Donald Trump will have grim results.

According to the AFT, this budget reduction would potentially: • Strip funding from up to 56,000 public schools — putting at risk the education of nearly 21 million children • End Title I funding — funding distributed to schools and school districts with a high percentage of students from low-income families — and cut US$5 billion used for other crucial resources, potentially hurting more than eight million higher education students who rely on Pell Grants (a subsidy by the federal government for students who need it to pay for college), five million English language learners in public schools, and millions of others • Take away US$12.7 billion that five million

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students with disabilities count on to fund their education • Eliminate as many as 300,000 teacher jobs — leaving millions of students in larger classes with less support In an open letter, AFT president Randi Weingarten says that Trump’s plan will transfer nearly 30 per cent of the federal education budget into private school vouchers. This, she says, is of serious concern since research has shown that private school voucher programmes are not efficient or beneficial — not for the students who receive them, and not for the students in public schools whose schools have been deprived of funds.

‘Private schools do not enforce all federal civil rights laws, do not adhere to religious freedom protections provided under the U.S. Constitution, and do not face the same public accountability standards that all public schools must meet, including those in Title IX, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act — the very law that Congress just re-authorised in 2016,’ she stressed.

The NEA has joined AFT in its criticism of Donald Trump’s policy projections. ‘Donald Trump isn’t serious about doing what’s best for our students, and he’s clueless about what works,’ said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. ‘His silver bullet approach does nothing to help the most vulnerable students and ignores glaring opportunity gaps while taking away money from public schools to fill private-sector coffers. No matter what you call it, vouchers take dollars away from our public schools to fund private schools at taxpayers’ expense with little to no regard for our students.

private education in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and India. With funding and support coming from global edu-business Pearson, the World Bank, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and high profile investors such as Mark Zuckerberg and the Gates Foundation, BIA’s claims regarding its services generally portray the company as providing the solution to educational access for the poor.

The study finds that far from providing high quality education at a low cost to the most disadvantaged in Kenya, BIA education is of poor quality, inaccessible for the very poor and disadvantaged and is ultimately unaffordable for most families in the communities in which it operates.

More specifically, it reveals that in Kenya the majority of BIA students are taught by unqualified, overworked, teachers. BIA teachers are forced to use a scripted curriculum-developed in the US. Lessons are read from tablets, leaving little, if any, room for adaptation to meet the learning needs of students Thecurriculum used is not approved by Kenyan authorities. In fact, the Kenyan curriculum authority has concluded that “most of the content taught [by BIA] is not relevant to the Kenyan curriculum objectives.”

In terms of ‘affordability’ the total fees and charges paid by parents are much higher than those stated by the company in its marketing of the schools. Parents of BIA students have given testimony describing school fees pushing them into debt or causing them to struggle to pay for food and healthcare. With a strict enforcement of regular payments, students who are behind with the payment of fees are excluded from their classrooms and school.

The presence of so-called low fee for profit schools has severe consequences on the right to quality free education for all children, the study concludes.

Target 4.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals, ratified by Kenya, specifically requires the government to ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes. As such, the report recommends that the Kenyan government both fulfils its obligation to provide free quality public education and that it strengthens the regulations on alternative education provision to ensure that all providers adhere to minimum standards insofar as the employment of qualified teachers and the adherence to national standards with respect to curriculum and school facilities is concerned.

www.ei-ie.org

Kenya New study dismantles mirage of ‘low-fee’ private schools

A new report looks into the operations of Bridge International Academies in Kenya and uncovers the reality behind the private for-profit provider’s claims to offer ‘affordable’ quality education.

Bridge vs Reality: a study of Bridge International Academies’ for-profit schooling in Kenya is Education International’s (EI) latest report on the commercialisation and privatisation of education.

The study looks at the claims of quality, accessibility and affordability of BIA’s educational provision.

Bridge International Academies (BIA) is a large and expanding business that provides for-profit

www.ei-ie.org 16