All Organisations subcategories:
Committee for a Workers International
Nationalist and National Liberation
Pro capitalist and Imperialist
Left and radical keywords:
International Socialist Resistance (54)
Revolutionary Communist League (1)
Socialist Peoples Party (Denmark) (1)
Socialist Students
Highlight keywords |
Print this article
Search site for keywords: Youth - Cuts - Education - Students - Schools - College - Student - Colleges - Socialist Students
Exam factories, cuts and violence - Fight for our future!
Schools are becoming little more than exam factories, photo by David Hawgood/CC (Click to enlarge)
John S, school student, south London
On 23 August, this year's GCSE students faced the dreaded 'results day' - luckily for me it's not until 2019. But with every passing day you grow a little more scared of that looming event.
That's natural though, right? It's normal to be afraid of exams, right? Yes, fear of an exam hall is normal. Working in a system set up against you on the other hand, shouldn't be.
In the last five years alone, almost £1 billion was cut from youth services. From 2012 to 2016 almost 600 youth centres shut. Who knows how many more since then? On top of council-run services, local authority funding for voluntary sector youth work has fallen by an average of 35% too.
If money in these areas is all going down, what's going up? The bonuses, the profits and the fat cats' bellies. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos makes over $250 million a day! Meanwhile, last year Amazon paid only £4.6 million in UK corporation tax.
Why does this matter to us in schools? In real terms, £2.8 billion has been cut from our schools since 2015.
Gove - the Tory education minister who brought in the GCSE changes - said the new exam system was to make Britain compete with Hong Kong and Shanghai. But the most successful education systems are those with fewer exams - they tend to correspond with lower wage inequality, higher educational attainment and fewer mental health issues among students.
Why is the government - aided and encouraged by their big business friends - cutting education, youth services, housing and healthcare while the pockets of the super-rich get heavy with gold? Why, when they know people will suffer? Why, when they know there's a link between this austerity and youth crime?
The GCSE changes turned everything into a stressful memory test you have to do in year 11. You have to memorise a novel, poems and context - never mind all the equations. Who can do that while they watch an aunty cry because the bailiffs knocked on her door, or because her son was stabbed?
They know what they're doing. And they know we can stop them. Let's fight back.
Join Socialist Students!
- >socialiststudents.org.uk
- >@socialistudents on social media
- >Text 'join' plus your name and postcode to 07749379010
We call for:
- An end to all cuts to further education colleges and schools
- Grants for all college students
- Reversing all cuts to youth and careers services
- Scrapping of university fees
- A £10 an hour minimum wage for all
Donate to the Socialist Party
Finance appeal
The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
- The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
- When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.
Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.
We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.
LATEST POSTS
12 May Stop Israeli state brutality
 |
9 May Post-election meetings
15 May Birmingham Socialist Party: How can we fight for socialist change and a new workers' party?
17 May Oxfordshire & Aylesbury Socialist Party: The role of the state
18 May Bristol North Socialist Party: Liverpool - history of socialist struggle
CONTACT US
Phone our national office on 020 8988 8777
Email: [email protected]
Locate your nearest Socialist Party branch Text your name and postcode to 07761 818 206
Regional Socialist Party organisers:
Eastern: 079 8202 1969
East Mids: 077 3797 8057
London: 075 4018 9052
North East: 078 4114 4890
North West 079 5437 6096
South West: 077 5979 6478
Southern: 078 3368 1910
Wales: 079 3539 1947
West Mids: 024 7655 5620
Yorkshire: 078 0983 9793
ABOUT US
ARCHIVE
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999