JUST AS predicted by teaching unions - and by Education Secretary Gillian Shephard - up to 10,000 teaching jobs are set to disappear as a result of the swingeing cuts in education budgets across the country.
A survey by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers has identified 4,600 threatened redundancies in schools - to which must be added the thousands of posts being shed through early retirement and the non-renewal of temporary and short-term contracts. 'Noads budgets' Pressure is being piled on those head teachers and school governors who have stood out against cuts and opted for 'needs budgets': but some are still standing firm.
Amid this evidence that Was. the mobilisation of tens of thousands of parents, governors, teachers and school students earlier this year has failed to stem the tide of cuts, wall." the temptation is to despair: but the Fight Against Cuts in Education (FACE), which brought 15,000 onto the March 25 demonstration in London, is digging in and fighting on.
The Tories paid a heavy electoral price on May 4 for their pig-headed insistence on forcing home the cuts in schools. With a general election looming closer, the key is to keep this issue high on cuts. the political agenda.
The FACE conference on June 10 will be drawing lessons from the campaign so far and preparing for another national demonstration on September 30 - to combat further cuts next year.
"We won a lot of the arguments and the publicity battle against the present round of cuts, but our campaign was too late in starting," argues the new FACE Broadsheet.
'The campaigns didn't really take off until after Christting schools.
FACE was only
launched in February: by that time massive cuts had already been decided by the government. The writing was on the Picking up the pieces after Clause Four setback The lesson, argue the FACE Steering Committee, is to get the retaliation in first, before the government policies are announced. The next time should be a little easier: a whole network of contacts has now been established. Leach.
Of course it will not be "The government stole a easy to keep the campaign ac- march on us last year, and that tive through the long summer is once too often. Children are vacation period without the now paying the price. We are focus of fighting specific new not going to let that happen again. September 30 is going However the autumn term to be the day we turn the tide will bring many parents, gov- of education cuts." emors and teachers up against The June 10 conference the new reality created by the will aim to consolidate the present round of cuts. wide spread of local campaigns and groups which New wave have sprung up across the September 30 will aim to country, and to develop the focus a new wave of anger, debate on policy for the fight and raise the level of battle ahead. next time around. Already It will hear that FACE is there are predictions that the now growing in several areas next round of cuts in many of London and in other big counties will be even more cities where the cuts have dedraconian than those now hit- veloped in a different way from the shire counties, and 'We have to convince there are possibilities of a people that the time to act is breakthrough into Scotland, now, before it is too late," where Strathclyde Labour says NUT Executive member council is developing its own and FACE treasurer Roy cuts package.