National free education demo: a step forward

Around 700 or 800 students marched through London yesterday on the national demonstration against fees and marketisation organised by Education Not for Sale in alliance with other socialists, anti-capitalists and free education campaigners, as well as a number of student unions and the NUS Women’s, LGBT and Black Students’ Campaigns. (For a full list of the sponsoring organisations, see www.studentdemo2009.org.uk.)
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ENS fringe meeting after tomorrow’s free education demo: how do we go on to win?

Organising the 25 February demonstration for free education has been a positive step forward. But how can we organise the kind of further, more radical action that can actually beat fees and marketisation, and win our demands? After the wave of occupations in solidarity with Gaza, direct action is back on the agenda. Will we see a wave of occupations against top-up fees and for free education? What sort of politics are needed to underpin such a movement of resistance to the bosses’ attempts to make students and other public service-users, as well as workers, pay for their economic crisis?

Speakers
Daniel Randall (Education Not for Sale)
Tali Janner-Klausner (London school student activist)
Catherine Ayme (Student activist at Lille University, member of France’s New Anti-capitalist Party)

Chair
Tom Wills, University of Sussex Students’ Union president-elect

3.45pm (or as soon as the demo ends if later)
The Ivy House, 8-10 Southampton Row (two minutes from Holborn tube)
Map here.

Email education.not.for.sale@gmail.com or ring 07961 040 618

Ring 07961 040 618.

As another uni occupies, Labour Students prepare to slam occupations!

As Cardiff University goes into occupation over Gaza (see occupiedcardiff.blogspot.com), the following motion has been submitted to this Saturday’s Labour Students conference by Manchester Metropolitan University Labour Club. It seeks to portray the Gaza occupations movement as anti-democratic and anti-semitic.

Following the failure of the NUS leadership to support the 25 February demonstration for free education, and its destruction of NUS democracy, this is just another step in Labour Students’ degeneration. What we want to know is, will NUS president Wes Streeting vote for the motion?

ENS looks forward to seeing and helping organise a wave of new occupations, over free education and other issues, in the coming period.

For ENS’s statement on the Gaza occupations, which discusses the issue of anti-semitism, see here.
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Israeli student war-refuser tours Britain, 5-14 March

The Shministim speak: Israeli student jailed for refusing to serve in army tours Britain, 5-14 March 2009

Following massive demonstrations and a wave of student occupations against Israel’s war in Gaza, British activists will be hosting a speaker tour with Tamar Katz, one of the Shministim, Israeli high school students jailed for refusing to fight in the occupied Palestinian territories. She is being brought over by Workers’ Liberty students, but the meetings are being hosted by a variety of organisations.

Tamar, 19, was jailed three times, for a total of 51 days at the end of 2008, for refusing to take part in military service. She explained why:

“I refuse to enlist in the Israeli military on conscientious grounds. I am not willing to become part of an occupying army, that has been an invader of foreign lands for decades, which perpetuates a racist regime of robbery in these lands, tyrannizes civilians and makes life difficult for millions under a false pretext of security.
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Byam Shaw students occupy against course cuts

Students at Byam Shaw School of Art at Central St Martins (part of University of the Arts London) have occupied in opposition to course and budget cuts, against outsourcing and for democratic representation. This is fantastically important - a model for other students across the UK.

As we commented, the occupations in solidarity with Gaza clearly have the potential to embolden students to take action in defence of their own direct material interests too.

byamshawpeoplesuniversity.blogspot.com
Messages of solidarity to Byamshawpeoplesuniversity@gmail.com

The occupiers’ demands are below.
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Five demands for rebuilding NUS Women’s Campaign

Activists involved in ENS Women have drafted these five action points for transforming NUS Women’s Campaign. We put them forward as a basis for discussion among student women’s movement activists, call on those involved in the Campaign to endorse them and/or write responses, and hope they will inspire ideas for student socialist feminist campaigning outside NUS as well.
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Fight to rebuild a political, campaigning NUS Women’s Campaign: vote Jennie Killip for National Women’s Officer

A statement by Gemma Short, Sofie Buckland, Laura Schwartz and Evangeline Holland-Ramsay - ENS Women supporters on NUS Women’s Committee

On the most basic level, the choice in this year’s NUS Women’s Officer election is clear cut: there is candidate of the right, Olivia Bailey of Labour Students, and a candidate of the left, Manchester University women’s officer Jennie Killip. ENS Women stood a candidate for NUS Women’s Officer in 2006, 2007 and 2008, coming within four votes of winning last time. This year we are supporting Jennie Killip.

At a time when the revival of feminist activism among students and young women continues to burgeon, the NUS Women’s Campaign cannot afford another year of inactivity and subservience to the NUS leadership under Labour Students. This is true despite Olivia Bailey’s attempts to portray herself as a left-winger.

However, we must also, in a spirit of honesty, make certain criticisms of Jennie’s politics and campaign.
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Student activists arrested in Iran

From Equality and Freedom Seeking Students in Iran

Mohammad Pourabdollah and Alireza Davoudi, two Equality and Freedom Seeking Students in Iran, were arrested.

This morning, Feb. 12th 2009, the forces of regime arrested Mohammad Pourabdollah in a brutal attack to his house in Tehran. He has been kept in the Evin Prison since then. There is no recent news from his situation and he has had no contacts with his family. Mohammad, a chemical engineering student at the University of Tehran, is one of the fifty EFS students who were arrested last year – after the 13 Azar, Students Day celebration.

Alireza Davoudi was also taken away from his home in Isfahan by the regime force and transferred to an unknown place. He is also one of the famous student activists in the university of Isfahan who was arrested last spring and kept under harsh physical and mental torture.

All EFS students in Iran ask from all social movement activists to spread out the news from the recent arrest’s raise of student movement activists in Iran.

For more see www.azady-barabary.org

Gaza occupations: inspiring solidarity shows direct action can win

• We need direct action for free education, and a new federation of student unions and activists independent of the NUS structures
• 7 March and 18 April events will discuss the way forward for the student movement

The last week has seen a new surge of student occupations in solidarity with the people of Gaza, with students occupying at Manchester, Strathclyde, Glasgow, Goldsmiths, Edinburgh and UEA.

The wave of occupations that has swept the country in opposition to Israel’s assault on Gaza is one of the most encouraging developments in the British student movement for a long time. It has big implications for student activism on many issues, including the fight for free education, and for the future of student unionism. ENS supporters participated in the occupations and in two cases, Cambridge and Edinburgh, played an important role in initiating them.
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ENS candidates for NUS executive disqualified

On Friday 6 February, Education Not for Sale submitted four candidates for NUS National Executive:

Daniel Randall (Sheffield University): President and national executive councillor
Koos Couvée (Sussex University): Vice-President Higher Education
Katherine McMahon (Edinburgh University): Vice-President Welfare
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Bradford University): Vice-President Union Development

However, the nominations were handed in one minute late and therefore disqualified.

We are not claiming that our democratic rights have been outrageously violated; clearly, we screwed up. However, we do believe that NUS Election Committee’s decision was unreasonable.
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ENS amendments for NUS conference 2009

Dear student unionist,

Please find below ENS’s model amendments for NUS conference 2009 (31 March-2 April). Each NUS-affiliated SU can submit one amendment in each Zone. The deadline for submission is 27 February.

If you would like help submitting them or for more information, get in touch at education.not.for.sale@gmail.com

In solidarity

Daniel Randall
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Mobilise for the national demonstration, 25 February!

Education Not for Sale is delighted that the national demonstration which we initiated and have taken a central role in organising is coming together, and will be attended by many hundreds if not thousands of student activists. In the year that the cap on top-up fees could be lifted, this action could not be more important - so bring a delegation from your college or university!

For more information, including about transport, or for model publicity, email studentdemo2009@gmail.com
For more see the website www.studentdemo2009.org.uk
For the Facebook event for the demo, see here.

For more details, a list of supporting student unions, the supporting statement etc, see below
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