Education


Nowhere to retvrn

10 July 2023 The far right has always tried to control historical narratives to uphold its values. The so-called ‘trads’ are bringing it online, writes Eleanor Janega

Against capitalist realism

19 June 2023 Speaking at the 2023 LSE Festival, Ayça Çubukçu urges the audience to reimagine not a fairer society, but a just one in which we demand the impossible

Buen vivir, buen migrar: The Chiapas museum rehumanising migration

31 May 2023 Deyanira Clériga Morales describes the work of the Chiapas-based Migration Museum, or MuMi, in dignifying migration and resisting displacement

Unity between rank and file workers! A teacher’s response to the fine of NEU

11 May 2023 Teachers and support staff need to unite in the face of attacks on their ability to organise together, argues Vik Chechi-Ribeiro

Mourning radicalism

15 December 2022 Khadijah Diskin explores how can we avoid the cynical commodification of bell hooks' legacy and build upon her scholarship

UCU Rising logo

Time to shut down the education factory

27 October 2022 Sol Gamsu explains why it is time for historic coordinated action across the education sector

Hugh Scanlon at a Metalworkers conference

A historical look at union education: what can be learned?

5 October 2022 The Communist Party of Great Britain's education programmes were integral to producing a generation of trade union leaders. Alex Maguire analyses this historical moment.

Red Pepper @ The World Transformed 2022

22 September 2022 TWT returns to Liverpool 24-27 September with four days of radical debate, strategy, education and celebration. Here’s where you’ll find the Red Pepper team

Jamia’s journey: a Delhi university shifts to the right

21 September 2022 Ashish Kumar Kataria reports on the increasing clampdown on student freedoms in what was once one of India’s most progressive universities

Exam questions: a flawed education system

25 August 2022 The pandemic has turbocharged educational inequalities. Kevin Courtney outlines what needs to change

Rebuilding collective intelligence

24 July 2022 Human capital theory cannot solve our economic woes. David Ridley says we need a socialist alternative

Reviving student action and strike solidarity

19 June 2022 The Red Square Movement outline the recent history of student resistance in the UK and their work in organising co-ordinated national action

Political education for all

1 May 2022 Political education is absent from our current system. The left should be providing alternative means of obtaining it, writes Shamime Ibrahim

Whose speech is the Free Speech Bill protecting?

29 April 2022 The government's clampdown on free speech is part of a wider campaign to erode all civil liberties. Students must resist, writes Jack Ballingham

Universities, financialisation and the fightback at Goldsmiths

12 April 2022 Vincent Møystad argues that as higher education institutions are pitted against each other, students, staff and activists must come together to resist a costly race to the bottom

Hungary’s illiberal education

3 April 2022 Victor Orbán’s far-right government in Hungary sees higher education as critical to the consolidation of the ruling Fidesz party’s grip on society. Dorit Geva reports

Education for an alternative

21 February 2022 Daniel Eales argues that the upcoming UCU strikes highlight both education’s current problems and offer alternatives to them

The lasting legacy of Raymond Williams

30 December 2021 Rhian E. Jones reflects on the legacy of Raymond Williams, born 100 years ago, and his enduring influence on Red Pepper

Cops on campus are a threat to students of colour

8 December 2021 After promising to tackle racism, UK universities are strengthening ties with the police and putting racially minoritised communities at risk. Remi Joseph-Salisbury reports

Solidarity with striking lecturers is the only way students win

24 November 2021 University workers are right to be angry. Students should actively support their strike, argues Thys Millan

Banned words and racism in schools

8 November 2021 Continued use of 'standard English' in schools is a key means of upholding racial inequality. Furzeen Ahmed and Ian Cushing take a look at the history

Prevent strategy funding Birmingham theatre

30 June 2021 The government’s Prevent strategy is funding productions that will damage community relations, argues Keith McKenna

Anti-racism under attack

22 June 2021 Around the world, politicians and school boards are demonising Critical Race Theory. They're scared of its transformational power, argues Remi Joseph-Salisbury

Can’t pay, won’t pay

26 May 2021 First-year student Saranya Thambirajah reports on students’ experience of the pandemic – and how they are using rent strikes to fight back against the marketisation of higher education

Virtual exhibitions and art for all

4 April 2021 A year into our new virtual reality, Siobhan McGuirk suggests a silver lining: once-exclusive degree shows are more accessible than ever

Shukri Abdi and the urgent need for anti-racist education

4 December 2020 The Shukri Abdi case is a painful reminder that UK schools are not safe for everyone. We need an explicitly anti-racist curriculum, argues Remi Joseph-Salisbury

Locked out during lockdown

1 December 2020 Already dealing with the effects of the hostile environment in education, Sanaz Raji explains the new challenges facing international students during the pandemic

2010 Student Protests

The crisis in higher education: hindsight and 2020

25 November 2020 Gargi Bhattacharyya reflects on the state of UK universities a decade on from the student uprisings in 2010

Frontline workers and Covid-19: support staff and the neoliberal university

24 November 2020 Max O’Donnell-Savage explains how university support staff are forced to risk their lives – while ensuring campuses are 'Covid-19 secure' for students

Exceptional measures

11 November 2020 Narzanin Massoumi argues that the ‘war on terror’ should serve as a warning against increased state powers in response to the Covid-19 crisis

Photo: Tyrell Willock

The racist roots and reality of school segregation

22 October 2020 As education becomes increasingly authoritarian, the battle against racist educational enclosure policies is one the left cannot afford to lose, argues Jessica Perera

Authoritarianism is creeping into classrooms

3 October 2020 New curriculum guidance will limit critical thinking and cement a neoliberal capitalist consensus. It should be setting off alarm bells, says Remi Joseph-Salisbury

Reversing the flow

10 July 2020 To undo prison culture, we need to reverse exclusionary, utilitarian, capitalist culture. This includes dismantling the school to prison pipeline, argues Ewa Jasiewicz

Lockdown live: ‘Race today’

24 June 2020 Join Red Pepper editor K Biswas and guests Paul Gilroy, Lola Olufemi, Ciaran Thapar and Joy White to discuss marginality, inequality, creativity and belonging in Britain

No police in our schools

8 June 2020 As students return to school and protests against institutional racism spread across the UK, the left must keep monitoring - and opposing - efforts to put police into classrooms, says Remi Joseph-Salisbury

Gender, class and cliché in Normal People

26 May 2020 The BBC hit drama shows the complexities of class mobility, but can’t avoid class and gender stereotypes, says Frances Hatherley

International Women's Day rally at Leeds University during the 2018 USS Pension Strikes by Alarichall

Feminism in the precarious academy

10 March 2020 As the University and Colleges Union strike enters its final week, Ruth Pearce discusses the importance of building alliances and fighting back

Cartoonist from 1888 depicting John Bull (England) as the octopus of imperialism, grabbing land on every continent. Public Domain.

Education and Empire

28 November 2019 Following Labour’s manifesto pledge to educate the public on the histories of empire, slavery, and migration, Kimberly McIntosh explains the dangers of colonial nostalgia in the national curriculum

photo of empty school desks and large window in classroom

This is how we build a National Education Service in the UK

15 September 2019 Chloe Tomlinson lays out the battle lines for a more egalitarian, democratic and holistic education system. Essential reading ahead of The World Transformed education sessions

Building a ‘Museum of Dissent’

5 July 2019 Lisa Kennedy and Donata Miller suggest five ways museums can be sites for dissent

What happens if a university fails?

29 May 2019 David Ridley reflects on the Augar Review

We need to decolonise museums

23 May 2019 Decolonising the museum is a pathway to decolonising society. We must start by providing more honest accounts of our past, says Subhadra Das

Governments fixate on STEM education – so why won’t they listen to scientists on climate change?

12 April 2019 Governments could do well to learn from school students, writes 17-year-old Climate Striker Cate Davies

Let’s harness the power of political education

1 April 2019 We need political education to build a confident, fighting movement writes Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins, an organiser for Bristol Transformed.

The rise of the student worker

10 January 2019 The student population today is unrecognisable from that of a generation or more ago, writes Matt Myers. And it is central to any socialist project for the future.

What can academics learn from the Lucas Plan?

22 November 2018 With the right organising and the right plan, UCU workers can transform universities from within. By David Ridley

‘Could do better’: Racism in schools

3 October 2018 Remi Joseph-Salisbury writes that institutional racism is not just about individual teachers, but a lack of clear school-wide or nationwide policy.

Educate, agitate, organise

26 September 2018 Jane Holgate and John Page on a new approach to political education - and its radical potential.

Stormzy’s scholarships aren’t racist. They’re about tackling racism.

17 August 2018 Stormzy is offering university scholarships to Black young people - and some people are kicking up a fuss. By Dr Remi Joseph-Salisbury

Education is a fight, not a privilege

22 February 2018 Laura McDonald writes that universities should not just be finishing schools for the wealthy or disciplinary institutions churning out docile workers.



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