International Conference in Defense of Public Education Bulletin
Issue No. 1
IN THIS BULLETIN
1) Introduction, by ILC Coordinators
2) Speech of Jacques Paris,
teacher-unionist, at the June 16, 2002 Meeting in Geneva in Defense of
the Conventions of the ILO
3) Contribution to the June 16, 2002 ILC
Meeting in Geneva Regarding Public Education and the ILO Norms and
Conventions -- by Marie-Edmonde Brunet, Paul Barbier, Jean-Marc Bouchet,
Francois Chaintron, and Jacques Paris (France)
4) Italy: "Promoting the School and the
Business World, The First as a Function of the Second" (A
propos the "White Book on Education and Professional Education by
the European Commission, EU") -- by Lorenzo Varaldo
5) Portugal: In Defense of the Public School --
by Ana Paula Amaral and Carmelinda Perereira
6) The Situation of Education in Burundi --
by Paul Nkunzimana
**********
1) INTRODUCTION
This bulletin is the first of a series concerning the International
Conference in Defense of Public Education, organized under the aegis of
the International Liaison of Workers and Peoples (ILC), which will take
place immediately prior to the June 2003 annual assembly of the ILO
(International Labor Organization).
[Note: The ILC is a component part of the OWC Continuations Committee.]
We publish herein several documents that will allow us to open
discussions and exchanges at the international level of those questions
that arise from the fight for public education.
We recall that the current offensive of privatization/dismantlement of
education, including higher education, has as its framework the General
Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organization.
The General Agreement was in fact used to justify this offensive at the
the last WTO summit in Doa at the end of 2001.
Interest in dismantling the education system and higher education stems
from the high economic stakes that privatization of education, and
particularly higher education, puts in play.
In the last few months major mobilizations against privatizing education
have occurred, the two most recent being:
-- The October 29 strike in Portugal, called by the main union of
Portuguese educators, against the budget cuts by the Portuguese
government; the cuts, which follow directives from the European Union,
will, among other things, remove 30,000 teachers from the Civil Service.
-- A general strike the same day in all the sectors of education in
Spain, a strike that united all the unions against the so-called
"Quality Law" of the Aznar government; this law effectively
privatizes secondary education.
In publishing this bulletin, we are calling for a debate to begin; we
hope others will contribute ideas for preparing the conference.
We would like particularly to draw your attention to the timeliness of
the conference, and we therefore include an article describing the
current process of revising ILO Recommendation 150 and Convention 142 on
professional education.
Preparations for this conference are part of the continuing fight
spearheaded by the ILC on an international level in defense of the norms
and conventions of the ILO.
- ILC Conference Coordinators
********************
2) Speech by Jacques Paris, teacher-unionist, at the June
16, 2002, Meeting in Geneva in Defense of the Conventions of the ILO
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
A few months ago an Appeal from union activists of several countries
asked that teachers support and participate in the Berlin Conference
Against Deregulation and For Labor Rights For All [for a copy of this
appeal, visit our owc website at www.owcinfo.org]. As a continuation of
that appeal, today, you have before you an article [see below] analyzing
the content and stakes of the current process of revising ILO
Recommendation 150 concerning professional education.
What I offer is a practical proposal -- to organize an international
conference in defense of public education. This proposal is included in
the provisional summary of conclusions you have received.
Today, in each of our countries, we are confronted with
"reforms" set in operation by our governments under pressure
from international organizations such as the WTO, the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank and the
European Union; these reforms, all of them, will bring about the
destruction of public education and the right to an education.
It must be noted that the positions advocated by the preparatory report
on the revision of Recommendation 150 (planned for completion by 2004,
after a debate in the ILO general assembly in June 2003), accept and and
repeat all the rationales of the above reforms: substituting the term
"competencies" for the term (formal)
"qualifications", in the name of flexibility in the labor
market; substituting so-called "non-formal" and
"informal" education for the right to be educated in a school;
and substituting privatization for public services. That is the real
meaning of "lifelong professional education."
No one can accept that such positions become the norm for the ILO. The
international conference I am proposing forms part of our common
struggle. To make this clear, I offer a quotation, extracts from an
article by a counselor of Prime Minister Tony Blair, that appeared in The
Observer, an OECD review: "In the 20th century, public
education systems were indissolubly linked to the Providence-State (or
Welfare State). They fashioned the national identity and prepared the
population to make its contribution to society. But these institutions
arose from industrial societies and nation-states, institutions that
belong to an era whose time is past; they have been replaced by the New
Economy and Globalization."
Does this require comment? That globalization should and must destroy
public services, hard-won social gains, and nation-states themselves?
The international conference that we propose is, obviously, a political
conference. We find support in the resistance expressed, for example, in
the powerful demonstrations that took place recently in Spain and Italy,
based on the opposition of the Education International (EI) to the
inclusion of Education in the WTO Agreements on Trade and Services.
-----
The teacher-delegates met June 16. The proposal for a preparatory
bulletin was approved. The first issue is expected to appear at the end
of summer or in the fall of 2002, under the aegis of the International
Liaison Committee.
The Conference is expected to be held in June 2003, just prior to the
10th ILC Meeting in Defense of the ILO Conventions.
********************
3) Contribution to the June 16, 2002, ILC Meeting in
Geneva Regarding Public Education and the ILO Norms and Conventions
Should the ILO recommend that professional education be turned into
a tool for promoting flexibility in the labor market, during one's whole
lifetime?
The BIT (International Labor Bureau) has published a report entitled
"Learning and educating oneself for working in the Knowledge
Society," as preparation for an initial discussion on
"professional education and the effective use of human
resources" for the 2003 session of the ILO. The aim is to complete
a revision of Recommendation 150, which complements Convention 142 on
this issue, during 2004; both Acts were adopted in 1975.
The directives advocated in this report are particularly disturbing:
they will disrupt all levels of education, by applying to all the same
imperatives of "flexibility" (framed as the issue of
"lifelong professional education"). These questions must
therefore be examined by the Meeting convened for June 16, 2002, in
Geneva by the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC).
The report is not a simple tentative working paper; it is based on a
resolution adopted during the 88th session in 2000 which concludes that
"it behooves us to reexamine Recommendation 150 in the light of the
new approach to professional education" -- responding to the needs
of "the modern labor market." The consequences to be drawn
from this approach are highly elaborated in the resolution and the
report, as we shall see.
National governments are expected to reply by June 1 to the
questionnaire sent them by the BIT, for the purpose of defining the axes
of the future recommendation; the report describes itself as "a
source of ideas for the countries invited to reply to the
questionnaire."
Similar procedures have already been used to undermine and overturn
existing ILO guarantees, norms and convention regarding maternity, night
work for women, and child labor.
So we know the task we face.
THE REASONS GIVEN FOR THE PROPOSED REVISION
According to the report, ILO Convention 142 and ILO Recommendation 150
reflect the economic and social conditions of their times. "The
majority of countries pursued and planned economic, social and
industrialization policies ..." and "a large fraction of
employees had secure jobs" (report, p. 1).
It summarizes in this way the reasons that must lead to the adoption of
a "revised norm": "Recommendation 150 gives very little
weight to the demand side and to consideration of the labor market, and
it provides very little guidance, indeed none, regarding the numerous
issues at the center of reforms of the systems and policies of
professional education that the Member States are currently instituting.
"These questions are the following: policies, governance and
regulatory framework for professional education; roles and
responsibilities of Parties other than the State (for example, the
private sector, the social partners [stakeholders is the current cliche],
and the civil society) in the elaboration of these policies; investment
and the supply of professional education and other modes of acquisition
of knowledge; the desire of numerous countries to offer to everyone the
possibility of continuous acquisition of skills; conceiving policies and
mechanisms appropriate to groups having particular needs; reorientation
towards the development and recognition of competencies, including a
broad spectrum of skills linked directly to work, technical competencies
and behaviors (these competencies comprise the elements of the framework
of qualifications that are appearing in many countries); the necessity
of extending the activities of developing those competencies that
prepare workers for independent employment" (report, p. 2).
At the foundation of the constitution of the ILO is the conclusion that
"the failure by any nation whatsoever to establish a truly humane
system of labor relations creates an obstacle to the efforts of other
nations which desire to improve the lot of workers in their own
countries" (Preamble to the Constitution of the ILO, 1919). That is
the basis for the necessity of protective norms that will not allow
"the law of the market" to crush workers.
It is not a question in this recent BIT report of establishing or
reestablishing the norms that would permit the restoration of public
education services (that formulation does not appear in the report), or
the recognition of such qualifications in collective agreements, or
fighting the scourge of illiteracy and of the decrease in school
attendance in many countries, or of helping to restore "secure
jobs."
The report puts forth the advertising slogan of entry "into the
society of competencies and skills" (p. 7), but in reality it
proposes adapting professional education to the most complete
deregulation: employability, flexibility, competencies as opposed to
recognized formal qualification, privatization and withdrawal by the
state, substitution of so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
for public services, development of a market for education and
professional education, consensual partnerships incuding labor unions in
order to make the report's points of view operationa. l... It is the
"modern" framework that is proposed!
It even involves swallowing that "atypical forms of work be
substituted progressively for stable salaried employment" (minutes
point 9). The report goes so far as to normalize the informal (i.e.,
underground black-market) economy, characterized as a "major pole
of job creation in several countries" (report, p. 9).
Recommendation 150 provides employees a certain number of guarantees, or
at least it gives employers certain obligations, to confront the logic
of "the market" -- which tends to deregulate all rights, to
undermine the stability of employment and to diminish the cost of labor.
These guarantees are now considered unnecessary encumbrances.
One can cite, for example, the following points in Recommendation 150:
in point #4, the reference that professional education ought to help
employees "develop and use their professional aptitudes in their
own interest and in conformity to their own aspirations while keeping in
mind the needs of society."
Hence, programs of professional education must be "in conformity
with public systems of professional education," serving "to
protect workers against unemployment" and "to promote social,
cultural and economic progress.".
Point #5 refers to complementing professional education with
"education regarding unionism given by their representative
organizations."
Point #6 refers to the need to "contribute to a better
understanding of technical, scientific, economic, social and cultural
questions, as well as to appropriate education concerning standards
(norms) essential to health and safety at work". Point #7 refers to
"education concerning general aspects of collective agreements and
the rights and obligations of all the interested parties under labor
law."
Point #15 stipulates that "programs of professional education
concerning the various professions and branches of economic activity
should be conceived so as to favor full employment and the development
of each person's aptitudes" and "the acquisition of higher
qualifications and access to advancement" -- which implies an
increase in salary. Point #17 refers to "public funding"
whereas point #24 stipulates that "initial professional education
and any further training that affords the acquisition of recognized
professional qualifications ought, as much as possible, be ruled by the
general norms decreed or approved by the competent organ, after
consultation with the interested organizations of employers and
workers."
THE KEY TO ANY SYSTEM OF PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION, FLEXIBILITY?
In point 9 of the resolution adopted at the 2000 sessions of the BIT and
ILO one reads, notably: "Employability is one of the principal
results of an education and of a professional education of high quality,
as well as of a vast range of other policies. It encompasses
competencies, skills and qualifications that reinforce the aptitude of
workers to find and retain a job, to progress on the professional level,
and to adapt themselves to change, to find another job if they wish or
if they are laid off, and to integrate themselves into the labor market
at different periods in their lives".
One then has to specify the objectives of professional education and the
rights that it affords ... or doesn't. As the debate and the preparatory
reports clearly show, the distinction between the terms
"competencies" and (documented) "qualifications" is
not a trivial semantic quarrel. The preparatory report for the 2000
session states, "Professional education for social inclusion,
productivity and employment", advocates without equivocation
"the abandonment of the concept of professional education for the
acquisition of 'qualifications' in favor of the development of and
recognition of 'competencies' that cover the whole range of skills
linked to work, technical knowledge, and human qualities; the increasing
need to orient activities of professional education toward the
preparation of independent workers and the informal sector".
Employers have unceasingly tried to de-legitimize recognized
qualifications, generally sanctioned by diplomas granted or guaranteed
by the State on the basis of collective-bargaining agreements and
contracts as well as grids of classification, qualifications understood
in many countries as permanent attributes of the worker and conferring
particular rights notably with regard to salary. In contrast,
'competencies' are considered to be "qualities, skills,
savoir-faire, attitudes toward work" that the employee has to prove
daily and that can be called into question at any moment, as the
production process evolves or the company is restructured, or by
personal reevaluation (as is now common practice).
Beyond the vagueness of the notion, in the final analysis it is the
employer who is the sole judge. The bosses rejected the amendment to
point 17 of the conclusions of the 2000 session presented by the
workers' sector of the ILO (who asked that any acquired professional
education be "remunerated in conformity with the provisions of the
pertinent collective agreements") by replying that "the
current tendency was against the establishment of any link between
remuneration and qualifications, but in favor of linking remuneration to
the competencies required by the job". This action makes the stakes
clear. (Minutes, points 272 and 273).
What is at issue clearly is the reduction in the cost of labor and an
attack on collective contracts in favor of individualization. Must the
labor movement resign itself to accepting the delegitimation of
protective norms, notably the idea of qualification, when faced with the
iron law of the deregulated labor market?
Conclusion #10 makes it precise, extending what was said above:
"the commission has also adopted the terms of the 1999 Cologne
Charter of the G8 (Cologne Charter heading: continuous apprenticeship --
objectives and aspirations; editor's note).
This charter, published in its entirety as an annex to the 2001 report
is nothing less than a charter of flexibility.
It stipulates: "The coming century will be characterized by
flexibility and change; mobility will be required more than ever."
In this context investment in "continuous apprenticeship"
becomes an obligation not only of governments and businesses but also of
"individuals" who have to "develop their capacities and
advance their careers"; the investment is made in the professional
education market.
As an example, the 2001 report cites the professional education grants
cofinanced by the State and by the individuals concerned, in Chile and
Great Britain, which should become generalized in all the countries of
the European Union. According to the employer Vice President "the
key to any system of professional education is flexibility, and an
ascending approach in which employers and workers share the planning and
undertaking of adaptive programs of professional education"
(minutes, point 82). Must the labor movement resign itself to adapt the
rules adopted by the ILO at the behest of the G8 and accept
participation in the "planning" of flexibility?
According to the report, "Making the individual responsible is the
very foundation of democracy" (report, p. 8). This is a concept
that resembles the law of the jungle: isn't democracy based on rights,
codified, among which, in the first rank, is the right to form
independent organizations representing workers? "It is up to the
individual to watch over his own apprenticeship" (report p. 29)?
The individual becomes responsible for his own employability or his own
unemployment ... and must even prepare himself for black market work.
HUMAN RESOURCES: FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE?
A new concept is brought to light here (report p. 55): "The
strategies for the acquisition of skills and lifelong professional
education create new challenges at the level of coordination of policies
and programs, of financing and of supplying possibilities for
acquisition of skills for all. They require an integrated vision of
education and professional education that covers the entire lifetime of
a person; a vast spread of paths of education and the acquisition of
skills; new environments for the acquisition of skills and professional
education, comprising formal and informal modes and a wider range of
partners. They imply new systems of allocation of resources, new
measures of inducement, notably the recognition, certification and
orientation of competencies, in order to motivate people to learn; and a
modification of collective and individual behavior. It is necessary to
create new institutional frameworks and to institute major reforms of
existing institutions"
The ILO has already adopted norms on apprenticeship (1939), on
professional orientation (1949), and on professional education (1939;
1950 for adults). The "integrated vision" of "lifelong
professional education" represents a fundamental turning point. It
is no longer a question of distinguishing between professional education
at school age and professional education as adults, between professional
education and education in general, learning from work or more exactly
from activity. The distinction between the three periods of life --
schooling, work, and retirement, is called into question: it is a matter
of remaining "employable" one's entire life.
Quite logically the report deduces therefrom a certain number of
conclusions and points of view. In contrast to the traditional point of
view of the labor movement, which fought for the schooling of children
and for norms prohibiting child labor (codified in Convention 138), the
report gives only lip service to the place of "conventional
education and professional education" (i.e., school, if we
understand them), only to add immediately "as well as the knowledge
one acquires at home, at the workplace, in the bosom of the community,
in the society in its entirety" (report, p. 15). Let us make clear
that according to the report "the workplace is becoming a major
source for the acquisition of skills during one's whole life." It
is so-called "nonformal" education and apprenticeship (in the
company) and "informal" education (daily life) that are
charged with "increasing the supply of competencies for the
informal economy" (report p. 73).
One will not be surprised if the resloution adopted in 2000 is content
to say that "one must prevent the work of children from depriving
them of permanent access to education"... (point 8), even as the
plague of child labor is developing even in the developed countries. One
will not be surprised that the objectives of basic education be limited
to "minimal capacities" (report p. 34) and to "basic
competencies" such as "learning to learn", with the
pretext that it is not so much a question of "transmitting
information" -- one no longer says skills or knowledge -- as of
teaching individuals "how to procure it themselves" (report p.
8). This throws a naked light on the reality of the "society of
competencies and of skills."
The report does not fail to recommend "professional education"
for "elderly workers" and cites as example the program adopted
in Great Britain, "Training for Work," for which the
government has just raised the maximum age to 63, a particularly
successful example of an active policy of the labor market ... (report
p. 77). The calling into question of systems of retirement is paralleled
by putting in place the system of lifelong professional education...
Must we resign ourselves to extolling the dismantling of public school
systems already widely initiated in many countries?
IS PRIVATIZATION THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION?
The object of the report is also "to determine the responsibilities
of each person with respect to investments in and financement of
education and professional education" (report p. 16). Free
schooling for all is out:
"If the State remains responsible for basic education and initial
professional education, the contribution from parents and from
communities is already substantial, and is required to grow.
"Every person who pays is inclined to verify closely the quality of
the services he receives in return. In principle the tuition costs and
other contributions paid by those beneficiaries who are not among the
impoverished should liberate public resources that will henceforth be
devoted to the poorest" (report p. 44).
Who can accept such a point of view?
The report extols the withdrawal of the State, whose activities should
be "concentrated on the coordination at the national level for
developing national programs for initial instruction and professional
education, and on the support, by measures of encouragement and
subsidies, for programs of instruction and professional education
dispensed at the local level."
It is therefore no longer a question that the State build schools, pay
for their operation, or hire the teachers. All must be decentralized.
All these arguments are found among those who support the so-called
minimal State: the state should no longer be administrator or
"master of the school", but overseer, regulator of
competition, recentered on its so-called regal tasks ... as in the 19th
century (police, justice, defense...)
The report does not fail to emphasize the results of such a policy:
"Decentralization has resulted in an expansion in the supply of
teaching from the private sector". (Editor's note: In Chile)
(report p. 44). The time has come for "the diversification of
would-be suppliers," the encouragement of competition, the
subcontracting out of the missions of the public sector (p. 76) and the
reduction of costs (p. 23).
"New institutional arrangements" are advocated: "The
reforms bearing on the content and programs of education and
professional education were undertaken in an institutional context in
total flux. The supply of professional education by the private sector
has shown substantial expansion, and it is more and more common for
regional, local and sectarian organizations, including NGOs, to propose
programs of initial education and professional education" (p. 42).
Those who can afford to pay can resort to private teaching services; the
rest must rely on charity entrusted to NGOs. This is down-the-line
regression. Must we resign ourselves to privatization at every level of
teaching?
"NEW" PARTNERSHIPS
How can such positions, so contrary to the interests of workers, of the
young, and of the whole population, be made acceptable? What is proposed
is making labor union organizations partners in their definition and
their operation. The report calls for "the consensus needed to put
these employment policies into effect (p. 22); the revised version of
Recommendation 150 would become a major tool.
It is even a question of "sharing the responsibility for the
elaboration education and professional education policies and setting up
partnerships, either mutual or with the government, whose purpose would
consist of investing in professional education and assuring its planning
and operation."
"With respect to professional education, the networks of
cooperation would also comprise regional and local public authorities,
the different ministries, professional and sectorial organs,
institutions and suppliers of professional education, nongovernmental
organizations, etc" (resolution point 19). It even advocates
putting in place new structures including representatives of the State,
the social partners and civil society: this is no doubt an expression of
the "new governance," which gives fewer and fewer rights to
citizens and workers, and multiplies the prerogatives of NGOs; union
organizations being demoted to just another NGO.
The consensus, the partnerships and the coresponsibility advocated by
the report leave no place for the defense of the special interests of
workers agains the State and the bosses, the very foundation of
democratic liberties.
We know that the enterprise of deregulating the school is part of the
enterprise of deregulation organized against collective social
guarantees in all countries. It is the object of counterreforms inspired
or imposed by the organs of globalization such as the World Bank, the
European Union or the OECD, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and set
in operation by the national governments.
We also know that everything is put to work to try to associate labor
union organizations with putting into operation this process of
deregulation and making them partners in this "reform.". Today
the objective of these international financial institutions is to align
the Norms and Recommendations of the ILO to these "market"
imperatives by revising Recommendation 150 of 1975.
No one can accept this. We do not accept this.
These threats reinforce our will to act firmly on objectives in
conformance with the independence of workers' organizations: NO to
privatization, NO to deregulation, FOR defense of collective agreements
and statutes, defense of social protection systems, and defense of
public services, beginning with public education services.
This is the meaning of the resolution we are adopting to support and
participate in the meeting of June 16, 2002, in Geneva convened by the
ILC in defense of the conventions of the ILO.
signed/
Marie-Edmonde Brunet, Paul Barbier, Jean-Marc Bouchet, Francois
Chaintron, Jacques Paris -- Teacher-Union Activists (France)
********************
4) Italy: "Promoting the School and the Business
World, The First as a Function of the Second" (A propos the White
Book on Education and Professional Education by the European Commission,
EU)
By LORENZO VARALDO *
I. Public education: A huge potential market out of reach of speculators
At bottom, there is the fact that the school is "interesting":
a huge market from which to make profit is hidden behind it. This
concept is plainly stated without equivocation in the White Book on
Education and Professional Education published by the European
Commission (executive body of the EU). "Organizing the school and
the business sector, the first as a function of the second ... Treating
investment in capital and in professional education on an equal
basis."
In addition, in a 1999 World Bank document titled "Education in a
changing world" that details the World Bank's strategic
orientations, it is affirmed that: "The essential question is not
to know whether the weight of extra-governmental actors in education is
increasing -- that will happen -- but rather to understand how that can
be integrated into the overall strategies of nations. ... The global
capital capable of being moved in a single night from any point on the
planet to any other is constantly seeking the most favorable
opportunities, including a well-educated, productive and cheap labor
force in places most favorable to the market and politically
stable."
With respect to the EU, we remark that it has published an entire
Memorandum that summarizes all its directives concerning schools. What
emerges, in general, is that following the March 2000 Lisbon Summit, the
EU decided to take complete charge of the school policies of the member
states.
The basic slogan is "lifelong education," to which we will
return in a specific paragraph. In a document after the Lisbon Summit
one reads, among other things: "The future of teaching is not a
subject of unanimous consensus. Should it also be the object of
privatization? To what extent? According to what modalities? It is not a
question of establishing whether competition is desirable or dangerous,
but of knowing whether it can be carried out concretely, being aware
that competition is clearly inscribed in the educational policies of
several countries. Are the primary and secondary instructional systems
organized according to the logic of the market economy? Concretely, one
has to examine whether the conditions for putting into operation a
system of perfect competition among scholastic establishments are
present in those countries responsive to the studies."
A few more citations for anyone not yet convinced: "'Partnerships'
between schools and businesses, as well as with social and cultural
organizations, should be instituted at the local level." (1)
"The existing partnerships between elite high schools (lycees) and
universities and industry must be reinforced. At the local level one can
do a lot."
"We call on governments to assign a different priority to
education, to invite industry to the discussion table on the content of
educational programs, and to transform the methods of teaching
technological material." (1)
But that is not all. Because enterprises intend on entering the school,
one should anticipate tax abatements for their "humanitarian"
work: "As a complement, the money spent on apprenticeship and
qualification in the enterprise, for example, represents a capital
investment for the enterprise quite as much as other fixed advantages
such as materials for research. As a consequence, such investment should
be treated in the same manner for tax purposes, without interfering with
the freedom of workers to move [from city to city -- translator's
note]." (2)
"As the Commission has proposed in its communication on 'a policy
of industrial competivity for the EU' (COM 94/319 final), it is
particularly desirable to introduce agreements according to which those
enterprises that have accomplished a special effort in professional
education would be permitted to carry a part of their investment on
their books as intangible capital expenditures." (2)
THE SCHOOL ON THE AUCTION BLOCK
In the EU Memorandum of last spring one can read that there exist three
types of education: "Formal education, dispensed in institutions of
teaching and professional education, which leads to conferral of
diplomas and of formally recognized qualifications; non-formal education
outside of institutions of professional education that does not lead to
official certificates; and informal education, which corresponds to
daily life."
The EU does not hide behind its objective: "Up to the present day
we have been familiar with the classic education that has dominated
political thinking. ... The totality of informal education represents a
considerable reservoir of knowledges that could be a great source of
innovations for methods of teaching and apprenticeship."
And for those who still haven't understood, the Memorandum specifies:
"The urban environment abounds with the widest range of
possibilities for educating oneself through life in the street ...
." To educate onself "by contact with life in the street"
schools are superfluous. The EU has given that matter some thought and
suggests quite a few other places where one might learn informally:
"To bring the supply of professional education to the local level,
it will be equally necessary to reorganize and redistribute existing
resources so as to create centers appropriate for acquisition of skills
in the places of everyday life where city dwellers gather, not only
scholastic institutions but also municipal centers, commercial centers,
libraries, museums, places of worship, parks, public squares, bus and
train stations, medical centers, amusement places and cafeterias in the
work place."
In order to understand the reach and the effect of these phrases on
governments one need only read a few passages in the Bertagna document
that forms the basis for the "Moratti" reform: "In
general, one can distinguish informal, nonclassic, and classic systems
of education. The first is represented by ordinary social life, which,
while not informed by any explicit potentially educative program, in
fact imposes SOME program through its operation, and in an essentially
irreversible manner.
The second concerns that grouping of institutions that, even though not
explicitly structured to promote the educative process of instruction
and professional education in a systematic and progressive manner,
nevertheless presses forward its aims in that area, in any country and
throughout the lifetime of its subjects. The third refers specifically
to the educational system of instruction and professional education
instituted and organized by the Republic (State, regions, local
organizations) for children and the young generation. The hypothesis of
reform under consideration is intended to be attentive to integration of
these various systems."
PERMANENT EDUCATION, LIFELONG EDUCATION
As frequently occurs, the worst programs are covered with ambiguous
slogans that refer after a fashion to something positive, to the most
legitimate aspirations.
Thus, the expressions "permanent education," and
"lifelong education" seek to inculcate the fact that human
beings ought to acquire from school the curiosity, the interest, and the
culture that would permit them to augment their knowledge and skills
continually and to be enriched therefrom. ... But that is not the
question here, and the directives of the international institutions make
that perfectly clear:
"The new modes of structuring and managing business in periods of
economic recession have rendered obsolete the concept of employment 'for
life' in large companies. 'Lifelong' apprenticeship' moreover, opens the
door to easy reconversion of persons in other work, and industry
supports this state unconditionally." (1)
It is therefore as a function of the recession that the concept of
lifelong education has appeared, and that for a very simple reason,
expressed in the document: workers have to get used to being continually
fired and having to find other work. That is why industry
unconditionally supports "lifelong apprenticeship."
We are struck by the similarity, not to say the equivalence, with
several phrases from the first project of "reform of the
cycles" (i.e., primary, secondary, and higher stages of schooling)
of ex-minister Berlinguer: "In a world in which the evolution of
the organization of society imposes the expectation that each
individual, in the course of his own existence, will be called upon to
change his profession several times, it is evident that the claim of the
school to deliver knowledges, aptitudes and capacities once and for all
must, in part, be abandoned. ... A perspective of permanent education
can only be conceived if it takes into account the fact that the society
no longer exists where one studies first and then one works the rest of
one's life, of course always in the same job." As one can see,
Berlinguer's ideas were perfectly in line with international proposals
demanding the precaritization of the existence of young people and with
the "new" Maratti proposal.
"New values for today's workers are appearing. The evolution of
models of organization clearly reveal their consequences for the
employee, who is asked to be flexible and mobile, to show evidence of
initiative, to take on greater responsibilities and to work in groups.
The employee, in turn, seeks a balance between work, family, and
leisure. People cross national frontiers looking for work and better
opportunities for themselves and their families." (1)
So, it's the workers themselves who are seeking out this instability?
They're the ones seeking "new values" such as job insecurity,
instability, forced moves?
"The report of the Round Table of European Industrialists (February
1995) institutes the need for flexible professional education with a
large base of skills suggesting an approach of the type 'learning to
learn' for life." (1) And we have seen just why this is suggested
to us.
According to the EU, lifelong professional education should be developed
on a local scale, and "should integrate the profile of the local
labor market and the needs of employers." (Memorandum)
II. Destruction of diplomas and titles in order to destroy the hope of
stable employment and a decent salary -- individualization of wage
income
Speaking of diplomas, personal (individualized) certificates ought to be
instituted: "In the apprenticeship society, individuals ought to be
required to prove their fundamental, technical, and operational
capacities exactly as they were acquired in the first place. There are
already several examples: driver's licences, English language (TEFL) and
mathematics (Kangaroo test). A personal card of capacities that provides
a recapitulation of them and of the skills acquired in this fashion
ought to be at the disposal of all those who so desire." (2)
More recently, with the Memorandum cited above, the EU has underlined
the urgency of moving in that direction: what is intended is the
individualization of the trajectory of professional education
"unique and specific to each individual" and "the
introduction of novel forms of certification of non-normative
education" among which are "certificates of skills acquired by
experience," the utilization of a "system of credits" for
a "European curriculum vitae and for self-evaluation."
Hence, the idea is to preclude any possibility for the collective
defense of salaries and working conditions. The personal card to be
substituted for a diploma has only one purpose: to help destroy
collective agreements, the sole instrument of workers' defense.
"Thus, for example, someone who does not have a certificate will be
able to present himself to an employer and show him that he has skills
in editing, languages, elaboration of tests of competence in
electronics, and from there call attention to the totality of his skills
even if he doesn't possess the scrap of cardboard that gives him the
status of qualified secretary. There are other examples such as
managerial and computer (skills)." (2)
"A project concerning 'the level of personal competencies' will be
launched. This document should give individuals the possibility of
seeing their own specific skills and know-how recognized, when and by
whatever means they were acquired." (2)
SCHOOL AUTONOMY: A TOOL FOR APPLYING THESE PLANS
"In order to ensure the success of reforms in this spirit, we
require four basic elements:
-- an independent national system of evaluation allowing the comparison
between one school and another of the level achieved by the students in
apprenticeships in the anticipated program (that is, a system that
rewards the schools that apply the reforms, practice the apprenticeship,
give companies entry into the school, etc., and put the schools into
competition with each other --editor's note);
-- autonomy and self-management of the scholastic institutions;
-- sufficient technical assistance offered by the relevant provincial
and regional authorities ... . The inspectors should be involved in the
program of improving schools and judging the results (see the courses
for bringing up-to-date and for indoctrination currently so in-fashion);
-- it is essential that the teachers and the heads-of-establishment work
in groups." (3)
"In many European countries schools are part of a centralized
national system with much bureaucracy, which makes the system slow to
react. to the point where it is impervious to external demands for
change." (1)
"The school must be given greater autonomy. Experience shows that
the most decentralized systems are also the most flexible, the fastest
to adapt, and thus have the greatest aptitude for developing new forms
of social partnership." (2)
And to do all that, the important thing is to force teachers into
letting salary increases depend on their availability and their good
will in applying these "reforms." "We recommend that the
government undertake an examination of policies on professional
education (of teachers) during time released from work to make the
system compatible with the objectives of the reforms. This should
include the possibility of conditioning the economic benefits expected
after completion of such courses on the teacher's producing
significantly better results in the teacher's school."
"STUDY VOUCHERS", FINANCING PRIVATE SCHOOLS
"Several Member States are trying new methods of financing
education and professional education that run from 'vouchers' for
studies to cofinancing of continuing professional education where those
involved assume part of the cost (by tax deductions, subsidies or the
introduction of 'professional education funds'). The search for new
forms of funding for education and professional education takes place in
the context where, while funding may still remain a task requiring
spending public money, a certain reduction in expenses has nevertheless
been realized in these last years." (2)
A SMALL PROBLEM, A SMALL DETAIL: the resistance by teachers and families
Destroying the schools, the diplomas, the programs, the cultural level,
might arouse a reaction from the population. The OECD, the EU, the IMF
and the World Bank, etc., know this full well; that is why they have
prepared themselves in a particularly cynical fashion:
"After these descriptions of risky measures, one can counsel on the
contrary numerous measures that don't create any political difficulty.
.... One can, for example, reduce the funding of schools and
universities, but it would be dangerous to reduce the number of
admissions. Families would react violently if their children were not
admitted, but would not oppose a progressive degradation of the quality
of teaching; and the school can obtain monetary contributions from the
families, both by progressive increases and by extracting occasional
contributions for special expenses; or the school can eliminate certain
subjects. These actions are carried out in one school after another, but
not simultaneously in neighboring schools, to avoid a generalized
discontent in the population." (source: Center of the OSCE,
Political Economy Notebook no. 13, OCSE 1996, article by Morrison
Christian, "The political feasibility of adjustments")
The World Bank and the European Union realize the obstacles in applying
such a policy and they frame these in [the document -- translator's
note]: "According to the World Bank, 'representative bodies from
union offices to local councils tend to be more open, individually, on
behalf of their members'." In other words, the unions and
establishments have to be involved in order to get around the obstacle
of free thought: simply aberrant!
According to the World Bank, and for the EU, it is important that
"the organizations of civil society, community groups, local
chambers of commerce, religious organizations, parents'
associations" contribute to this protocol.
We know well what this means: by creating shortages of staff and of
investments for the public school, one encourages the entry of private
associations of diverse nature that receive subsidies and, little by
little, replace a public service.
The EU specifies in the Memorandum that it would be equally necessary
that "the Non Governmental Organizations concerned" play
"as important a role as the official authorities and the education
professionals." Everything should be done at the local level,
"because it is at the local level where the organizations of civil
society and the associations have their roots."
-----
(* Lorenzo Varaldo is the national coordinator for the Manifesto of the
500. The article reprinted here is excerpted from "Letters from
School no. 7, organ of the Manifesto of the 500 in defense of the public
school -- Italy.")
FOOTNOTES:
(1) Education for Europeans -- Towards the Learning Society, ERT
(2) Libro bianco su educazione e formazione, Commissione Europea, UE
(3) OCSE, Esame delle politiche nazionali dell'instruzione: Italia,
Armando Editore, 1998 (OSCE = Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe)
********************
5) Portugal: In Defense of the Public School
-- The defense of the public requires the defense of democracy
-- The defense of democracy requires respect for the rights of workers
and their unions
(from statements from union confederations and unions in Portugal
advocating the withdrawal of the pending Bill on the Labor Code)
THE ATTACK ON TEACHING AND TEACHERS
September (2002) -- confirmation of the firing of more than 30,000
teachers, consequent to the closing of night courses and of primary and
secondary schools, the increase in the number of pupils per class, and
the refusal to appoint teachers for school libraries, etc.
Despite all that, Prime Minister Duraço Barroso has stated, "The
Ministry of Education is not a recruitment office." Women teachers
of young children are given hourly schedules different from the rest of
primary teaching; this deprives them of the days necessary for preparing
and reviewing their work as teachers, which is established in the
statute for such teaching professionals.
October -- The Ministry of Education publishes a classification of
schools of secondary education according to "the grades expected
from pupils" and the "grades obtained," aimed at
humiliating and discrediting the work of thousands of teachers.
Teachers are insulted in the Assembly of the Republic by the Secretary
of State for administration in the Education Ministry, who claims that
they have neither the ethics nor the aptitude to teach the subject of
sex education; and a deputy or the CDP-PP declares that there are many
teachers whose ideology does not furnish guarantees for teaching
subjects such as history.
After the insults comes the announcement of cuts in pay, increases in
taxes, increases in the number of years required to qualify for
retirement (42 years in Primary School!) and the sharp cuts in
retirement pensions. In higher education, cuts in budgetary resources
are more and more drastic. And now the government threatens to revise
the fundamental law on the education system.
That is how the general offensive against everything that smacks of the
people's social gains in the sphere of public education.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN THE FACE OF THIS OFFENSIVE?
It is only in unity that we can defend education, our retirement
pensions, the health system, and all the public services. So, let's
unite with our unions, with the national labor confederations, around
the demand for the withdrawal of the pending Bill on the Labor Code, the
principal weapon of the whole offensive of the government against the
rights and quarantees of workers.
The strike is just, that strike in defense of the dignity of the
profession of teaching, of the status of teachers, of their retirement
pensions, and against the increase in years of service (for retirement)
and cuts in wages.
This strike must be a step on the road to constructing workers' unity
with their unions and confederations, until the Bill is withdrawm. Once
this step has been accomplished, we will gain the strength to defend the
public school and the fundamental law on education that derives from the
Constitution, in which are inscribed the principal rights won in the
events of 25 April 1974.
---
(statement published by the Committee to Defend the Public School,
Lisbon, October 30, 2002. Ana Paula Amaral, ES. Dos Casquilhos, Barreiro,
and Carmelinda Pereira, EB1 no. 1 de Alges Rosario Rego, EB1 no. 2 de
Barcarena
********************
6) The Situation of Education in Burundi
By PAUL NKUNZIMANA *
The Burundi educational system is confronted today with a grave crisis
of liquidation, the consequence of the disengagement already begun by
the government in this sector (among other components of social
services) that is deemed purely "budgetary" by the World Bamk
and the International Monetary Fund.
For the government and the internationa financial institutions, "We
must once and for all get rid of the Providence-State [or Welfare
State.]" Collectivities and the parents themselves have to organize
and finance education, at every stage.
The degradation of the quality of education linked to the project of
privatization of schools contains a goodly number of regressive aspects.
At the level of primary schools, the government has diluted the teaching
program by establishing the "system" of the double session for
teachers and for teaching premises. In this framework, pupils work only
half the year while the instructor heads two classes at the same level
(and generally very crowded, with an average of more than 50 pupils per
class).
In education, the wage conditions are disastrous. With an income of less
than one dollar a day, the teacher can barely live and take care of
his/her family. At the primary school level the entry level salary is
set at 15,000 Burundian francs per month (Fbu. One US dollar equals
1,500 Fbu) whereas the monthly rent in Bujumbura is already more than
40,000 Fbu.
As part of the process of destruction of education, the system recruits
into (primary school) teacher education programs those with the weakest
school records, the better students being directed towards general
education, which opens the path toward higher education for them.
With such conditions of recruitment and work, the sector is largely
abandoned; the result is that a good number of teachers have no
qualification.
At the secondary level, the same attacks are in progress, to respond to
the demands of globalization and the international financial
institutions. Privatization takes the form of establishing
"town" colleges and lycees (regular and elite advanced high
schools) in communities so dilapidated they can't even pay their civil
service workers. The venues leave much to be desired; teaching materials
(libraries, laboratories, etc.) are absent. Salaries range between
35,000 and 50,000 Fbu per month.
There also, unqualified teachers are often called upon. A good number of
teachers have no qualification, and others "work" in other
domains than their own. For example, high school teachers (professeur)
in math or physics are qualified in chemistry, French teachers in
pedagogical sciences or history teachers in geography.
Secondary schools hire many adjunct teachers. Also, while there is a
crying need for teachers the government has just decided that they would
not begin hiring until the second trimester. Housing conditions are
worse than precarious.
The strike of primary and secondary school teachers that just took place
(May-June 2002) reflects the perfect demonstration that the
privatization of education can lead only to disaster.
The new school year opening set for September 16, 2002, remains rather
uncertain to the extent that the meager gains the teachers extracted
from the government will not be able to be honored by a government faced
with its own financial crisis.
The situation becomes even more uncertain given that the government, on
the demand of the IMF, has just this August 28, 2000 devaluated the Fbu
by more than 20% with respect to the US dollar.
The policy of privatization affects higher education as well, a sector
where the government is trying to liquidate the only public university
that exists in this country. The major aspect of this policy is
expressed in the proposal to liquidate university dormitories and
dininhg halls, which, if enacted, will result in the dismissal of a
crushing majority of students in university education.
Again, given the precarity of working conditions, the regular faculty of
the public university has fled ("brain drain") to the private
universities, to NGOs in Burundi itself or abroad. The privatization of
the (public) University of Burundi would essentially signal the
disappearence of Universities in this country, given that it is the
teachers at the public University who actually make the private
universities run (as adjuncts and to the extent that the privates can't
take over the University because it is too expensive and not profitable
in financial terms).
The strikes at the University of Burundi have caused the government to
retreat, so far. The proposals can, however, be "exhumed" at
any moment, as the government financial crisis deepens.
Altogether, new conflicts are in prospect, aggravated by the new law on
restriction and prohibition of the right to strike in the Civil Service.
Bujumbura, September 2, 2002
---
(* Paul Nkunzimana is a Member of the Committee of Correspondence of the
ILC)
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