Education without jobs? is a new pamphlet by Richard Hatcher, published by Birmingham Socialist Resistance. With a wealth of detail, it looks at unemployment trends and patterns locally and nationally, analyses both Coalition and previously, Labour policies and presents suggestions for an action plan for the labour and trade union movement to propose as an alternative.
You can read / download it here or get a printed copy from your friendly neighbourhood SR supporter for just 50p
Hatcher, R. and Jones, K. (eds) (2011) No Country for the Young: education from New Labour to the Coalition. London: Tufnell Press.
£12.95. Cheaper on Amazon!
The Coalition government’s programme for education is a fundamental challenge to the idea of social justice. It has provoked widespread opposition. A wave of student militancy has swept through the universities. Local campaigns against academies and free schools have mobilised parents and teachers.
This is the emerging and contested terrain which this book explores. It situates it in a longer timespan—the New Labour period as well as that of the Cameron government.
The book brings together leading critics of neoliberal education policy. Nico Hirtt outlines the European Union’s policy for the school system. Richard Hatcher examines the Coalition’s policy of increasing supply-side autonomy in the school system through academies and free schools. Lisbeth Lundahl outlines the characteristics and consequences of independent ‘free schools’ in Sweden. Stephen Ball and Carolina Junemann uncover the role of corporate philanthropy in the reform of state education. Pat Mahony and Ian Hextall report on their research in progress into Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme. Pat Thomson explores the dimension of the local, contrasting Labour’s rhetoric of local empowerment with the reality of centralised governance and the threat to the existence of local authorities posed by the Coalition. Alasdair Smith provides an account of the anti-academies movement. Martin Allen and Patrick Ainley focus on upper secondary schooling and the collapsing youth labour market. Jacky Brine analyses the role of the EU in the construction of a welfare to work discourse, adopted by Labour and extended by the Coalition. Kevin Courtney reflects on the torrent of policy innovation which teachers have experienced for more than twenty years, and the place that they might occupy within a broad trade union opposition. Joyce Canaan explores the possibilities of the English student movement. Ken Jones poses the question that will dominate the remainder of the Coalition government’s period of office: will the experience of unprecedented cuts in public services give rise to effective opposition and resistance?
Parents, children and supporters from “Stirchley and Cotteridge against the Cuts” protested once more today (24/8) outside of Merrishaw Community Day Nursery in West Heath. This lunchtime protest was timed to coincide with the open day, only two days before Merrishaw is set to close. Complete with flags, banners and chanting, the protesters let it be known in no uncertain terms that the Nursery must stay open.
UPDATE: 26th August
On 25 August, the day after this article appeared, Labour’s shadow business secretary John Denham proposed that any company wanting to win public sector contracts should have to prove it offered apprenticeships to out-of-work young people. The government “could take immediate action by supporting the creation of thousands of apprenticeships in companies that provide services to government including construction projects.”
It’s a step in the right direction – pity Labour didn’t take it when it was in government. But it will be a dead end unless apprenticeships are guaranteed to lead to a proper job.
In the meantime, as we have said, Labour councils could implement apprenticeship-compliant contracts today. Why doesn’t Denham demand that they do so?
Richard Hatcher has prepared this paper for Birmingham Against the Cuts
The causes of the riots are multiple and complex, but one major factor is the high level of youth unemployment. And while this is exacerbated by the recession, its underlying cause is structural, not just cyclical. There is a permanent change in the structure of the labour market which is drastically reducing the demand by employers for youth labour.
You may have caught the piece on Free Schools on the West Midlands Politics Show which featured (briefly) Richard Hatcher.
As Richard’s point about Free Schools being run for profit was contradicted by the presenter, he sent this reply to the show to set the record straight
:
Continue reading
by Bob Whitehead
In the 1980’s, Nicholas Ridley MP set out the Thatcherite vision for local Council services; a council should meet once a year to award all the council service contracts to private firms. Here was the clarion call for the attacks on council services that we have been experiencing ever since; cuts, attacks on the work force and privatization. We are still on that road and the ConDem government seems intent on speeding up in that direction. Continue reading
By Godfrey Webster
26th November 2010:
About 1300 people attended the conference, representing a huge number of anti-cuts groups around the country as well as some mainly London based individuals.
This was far higher than expected so an overflow meeting had to be hastily organised for the morning plenary session.
Plenary speakers during the day included Bob Crow, John McDonnell, Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Loach, Mark Sewotka, Paul Mackney, Dot Gibson, John Rees, Chris Bambery and Clare Solomon from NUS.
The workshops were like mini-conferences in their own right. The one I attended in the morning on Organising against the Cuts Locally had about 200 present and had reports from about 40 groups, ranging from Manchester down to little places like Redhill Surrey. Many reported very rapid and unexpected growth in their attendances over the last few weeks with a similar growth in activity and enthusiasm. The sudden influx of student activists had galvanised others. The groups had many different names but the political basis of them always seemed the same as our Birmingham against the cuts.
In the afternoon I attended one on alternatives to the crisis. There was general agreement on immediate demands like nationalising the banks, a million green jobs, cancelling Trident and new aircraft carriers, withdrawing from Afghanistan, taxing the rich, but there was a rather sterile debate between those who said we should have a full revolutionary program and others a transitional approach.
There were 25 amendments to the conference declaration which it was impossible to tackle within the time, so all amendments were remitted to a policy conference which will be called within 6 months.
There were 123 people nominated for the steering committee including me, Pete Duffy and Ian Scott. This will not meet more than quarterly but will elect an executive to carry through decisions.
Tuesday 14th December.
7.30pm, Bennetts’
Bennetts Hill, Birmingham City Centre
Download a flyer here: Higher_Education[1]
Birmingham Socialist Resistance sends congratulations to the students currently in occupation at Birmingham University.
Good report on the wave of demonstrations and occupations on the BBC website:
Britain in 2015:
The first students hit by the new fees are just graduating. 
Most are starting their working life with a debt of £38,000.
They are looking for work in an economy that has just seen more than a million jobs disappear due to the Con Dem cuts.
Those who do find work are earning around the average salary of £26,000 per year, enough to start paying back their loans. But not enough to pay make repayments and to start saving for a deposit on a home. The average deposit asked for now being over £30,000. Continue reading
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