Wednesday 5 November 2014

Challenging the Global Education Reform Movement and building solidarity with Palestine

This morning's meeting of the NUT International Solidarity Committee looked at developing our international work in solidarity with Palestine, in challenging the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) and in relation to our Annual Conference in April of next year.
The committee looked at our joint project with Edukid and the General Union of Palestinian Teachers.  The Union has formed a three-way partnership to produce a film and teaching resources on the lives of children and young people in Palestine; in order to educate UK young people about the lives and struggles of people their own age who live in poverty and are affected by war.

The first phase, involving an initial visit to Palestine to scope the project has taken place.  Filming will take place in the second phase of the project, during a visit to Palestine in January 2015, with the aim being to showcase the film at NUT Annual Conference in April 2015.

The committee also approved a recommendation to commit to Education International's Global Response to Education Corporations campaign.  This is a co-ordinated international campaign to tackle the privatisation, marketisation and commodification of education services by transnational corporations.

A range of strategies and tactics will be used to engage teachers in a range of different countries in tackling:

  • The introduction of 'low fee private schools' as a replacement for state education in the developing world, taking resources away from the most vulnerable learners and making profit from global poverty; and
  • The increasing commercialisation and fragmentation of state education systems in the developed world - with the attendant obsession with standardised testing, narrowing if the curriculum and PRP - in the interests of big edu-business.
This is a project of major international significance and the committee agreed we would want the NUT to be a driving force in the international coalition it will bring together.

For more information on the GERM, seethe latest edition of The Teacher here.  For more information on this project and the NUT's response more generally, drop me an email.

The committee also considered international invitations to Annual Conference 2015, including Kristine Mayle, Financial Secretary of the Chicago Teachers' Union, who attended our Global Education Reform conference and approved a plan to recruit more International Solidarity Officers.

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