Teachers at Newham Sixth Form College in East London, known as NewVic, will end their 30-day long strike tomorrow. This action aims to end the rampant harassment of staff and proposed course closures by senior management.
Mandeep Gill – the principal of the college, who prefers the pompous title of ‘CEO’ – has played hardball with striking staff and students alike: burning bridges in his mission to convert the comprehensive into an academy.
Indeed, the backdrop to this latest determined strike action at NewVic is last year’s successful struggle to prevent academisation. This bitter defeat for the college and its ‘CEO’ has subsequently led to all manner of bullying, intimidation, and harassment.
Socialist Appeal activists on the picket lines heard reports from NEU members about jobs being “deleted”, and of regular “bizarre inspections” of staff. Workers have also been incensed by contracts being changed “without consultation”, requiring them to work on Saturdays.
Little wonder that all these accumulated grievances have now exploded to the surface, leading to a significant solidarity movement from students at the college.
Student struggle
Management is proposing to axe entire departments in the coming academic year. For college students, there will no longer be the option to learn a foreign language, or to practise performing arts. Many other subjects face the chop.
These proposals were the spark that lit the flame, bringing students into this dispute with renewed vigour. There is a seething mood of anger amongst NewVic students, who can see the stinking hypocrisy of Gill’s claims that striking staff are “damaging” the “life chances” of students.
Students at the college have consistently organised solidarity demos in recent weeks, playing an important role in boosting morale, and aiming to broaden out the struggle to the wider community.
This is happening now at NewVic college in east London. Management announced courses are being cut. Staff have been on strike for weeks. Students are furious. @socialist_app NewVic students are trying to set up a campaign to kick capitalism out of the college. DM to get involved pic.twitter.com/0y7Lx61Ji9
— Ben Gliniecki (@BenGliniecki) June 22, 2023
One ex-student, who recently finished his university degree in drama, found out that his old teachers – who inspired him to become an actor – would be getting the sack. Consequently, he has been a regular attendee on the picket line.
“We cannot allow management to get away with this,” he told Socialist Appeal comrades. “They are robbing the youth of our future.”
Earlier this month, the frustration reached explosive proportions, with a student-led occupation of a classroom by performing arts students, in an effort to reverse course cancellations.
The student that led this occupation explained to us that, since students have overcome their fear of repercussions, “the potential exists for us to occupy much more than just one classroom”.
He added that such militant action could be “replicated” around the country. We wholeheartedly agree.
Academisation drive
NewVic is only an exception to the rule in that it has been able to resist academisation up to this point.
A struggle in Lewisham against City corporation Leathersellers has recently come to an end, for example, with academisation plans being forced through by the bosses, despite a month-long heroic battle by teachers.
There are two important lessons we must draw. Firstly, that the push towards academisation – resulting in worsening education standards alongside exorbitant managerial salaries – is commonplace.
It isn’t the whims of this or that ‘nasty’ management team that are driving this process, but the capitalist system’s unquenchable thirst for profits.
To finish this battle once and for all, therefore, means putting an end to this rotten system.
Secondly, this highlights the need for NewVic students and staff to escalate this struggle, and to broaden it out as wide as possible.
In fact, one student spoke to us about the need to “build for mass meetings” of students, ex-students, parents, and staff. And many are planning on building a student strike committee over the summer to maintain the momentum of the campaign.
In tandem with this, NEU members are striving for a successful reballot, to give them a renewed mandate for strike action.
There is a clear understanding of what is at stake if Gill has his way. As one NEU activist bluntly put it, the reopening of the school would not be “peaches and cream”; management are manoeuvring to “crack the whip harder”.
Mandeep’s motivations
In the face of this upsurge in struggle, management appears to many to be criminally incompetent. And true enough, NewVic’s ‘CEO’ has burned his fingers at every twist and turn.
What drives Mandeep is the tantalising prospect of a salary to match his grandiloquent title – something that can only be achieved if the school is academised. Indeed, becoming an academy allows local management to gain much more direct control over spending.
Freed from the ‘burden’ of ensuring adequate school supplies, these self-styled managers are allowed to raise their salaries to dazzling heights.
Academisation is officially off the table at NewVic. But these manoeuvres from management are a clear indication that, for them, the dream isn’t over: the dream of putting profit before education.
All the hand-wringing about having to make ‘tough choices’ flies in the face of reality. Ofsted awarded the school an ‘outstanding’ grade in terms of financial health last year, due to the £3 million operating surplus it recorded.
Simply put, if management claims they can’t afford our courses, then we can’t afford to let them call the shots.
Get organised!
With teachers nationally out on strike next week, on July 5 and 7, students everywhere should take inspiration from the ongoing battle at NewVic.
What this recent college occupation shows is that only militant action can strike fear into the hearts of those who are running education into the ground.
Across the country, standards are being slashed; and our teachers are being burned out by overwork and poor pay. Their struggle is our struggle. An injury to one is an injury to all.
Only by organising around bold, socialist demands – to kick capitalism out of education, and for colleges to be democratically run by staff and students – can we save our schools.
No doubt, the ground is being prepared for far more explosive events at colleges across the country. Whether it be the fight against police in schools; extortionate canteen prices; or bullying and harassment by management: students are instinctively fighting back.
By linking up with teachers, broadening out the struggle, and setting up strike committees and communist groups in every school and college, we can use the summer to build the fightback against Gill and his ilk.
This is precisely what the Marxist Student Federation is aiming to do. We urge you to join us in this task.
