English lessons for UNISON members - update

The UNISON branches at Senate House, Birkbeck and SOAS all contributed funds in the summer of 2011 to pay for English lessons aimed primarily at workers from outsourced companies who comprise porters, cleaners and caterers at the University of London.  The lessons have been delivered by teachers from the IFCELS unit at SOAS and the workers attending them have been focused and hard-working. One class has already achieved the first part of a literacy certificate.

The classes have been a huge success and we are now working with UNISON Region to develop the work and to organise funding from UNISON National Office. The plan is to offer ESOL (English as a Second Language) classes to a minimum of 40 workers who will receive 30 hours tuition each and be examined at the end of the course.  ESOL courses are accredited and it is nationally recognised qualification.

We hope to start the ESOL courses in April and we are busy producing publicity leaflets and spreading the word amongst the Balfour Beatty, Ocean and ISS workers both at the University of London and at other centres of higher education in the Bloomsbury area (as we will be receiving national funding, the ESOL courses are open to a wider range of workers).

Keep checking back here for further updates. 

Good Lord

The Health and Social Care Bill finally begins to wend it's way through the House of Lords with Lansley already being called 'seriously demented' if he thinks people in the NHS support his bill.

Conservative Party Conference

Lord help us but they are gathering in Manchester as I type to celebrate their great and wonderful leadership of this country over the past 12 months.  Manchester Piccadilly must look like one of the final scenes from Ghostbusters where Sigourney Weaver has turned into Zool and there are swirling thunderheads around the top of her apartment block.  Either that or it's raining and it is Manchester...


The only way I think I can survive this orgy of self-congratulation is to just not watch TV for a week or buy a newspaper.  Maybe it's time to concentrate on making jewellery for Christmas presents.

AV, Schmavey - who cares?

Do you remember when the Tories were in the run up to a General Election and the leader (Hague?  Major?) was busy trying to convince everyone that the topic du jour was whether or not the pound would be saved or would we join The Evil Empire aka the European Exchange Mechanism and start using dastardly foreign funny money?  Whichever Chief Clown it was in charge of the Tories at that point, they wanted to convince us all that the people in pubs and clubs up and down the land were holding earnest discussions about this issue.


No, they weren't.


No-one I know gave a flying one.  They could not have been less interested unless they were dead.  And that's pretty much where I think we are in the UK at the moment with the AV referendum.


I am interested in changing the voting system but what the Lib Dems have been banging on about for years - proportional representation - is not even on the menu.  It's more of the same or a system which I don't believe is much of an improvement at all.


I still haven't got my free government booklet, either.  I was hoping that would enrage me so much with it's undoubtedly patronising air that I would be stirred in to making up my mind one way or another.  But no, I have been left to my own devices.


Guess it will be 'No' then.  Unless I vote 'Yes'.

I'm not doing it because David Cameron told me to

This Big Society malarkey.  Lovely idea and all that but some of us have been at this for quite a long time.  Thirty years of it in my case.  Volunteer work, committee work, practical help for people in my neighbourhood.  Working with other volunteers to make things happen.  Think globally, act locally.  All without the aid of David Cameron.  Amazing, eh?


Now, of course, Cameron's gone and ruined it all.  The moment the phrase "Big Society" left his lips, I felt my mojo for doing things for nothing drain out through the soles of my feet.  Now I feel like a Dave evangelist every time I discuss the planning of the craft fair or contemplate mentoring a young, unemployed person or wonder how we can get ourselves organised to keep open the local library.


I'm going to keep a list of 'Tainted Things' to remind me of the appropriation by the Tories of all the good things us civilians have been up to for the past millenia or so.  

Opposites attract

Sarah Vine and Michael Gove.

What the hell do these two talk about over dinner?  She's writing articles in The Times about black opaque tights; he's scrapping the system to expand free school meals to children living in poverty.  My mind is boggled.  Perhaps that chirrup on about their kids the whole time?

I love reading about fashion.  Not all of it and not all the time but it's a perennial interest of mine.  Sarah Vine is not as good as Jess Cartner-Morley in The Grauniad because JCM knows that ordinary people outside of the journalistic/political bubble exist and not only that, we don't need to be patronised. Vine, on the other hand, actually thinks her readership need to have it explained to them that a 3-pack of 60 denier opaques from Marks is better value than one pair for twice the price from Wolford.

Thanks for that, Mrs. Gove.  I couldn't do the arithmetic before.  I can see why you are married to the Educational Secretary.

Spending review: ...now a sharp scratch

I've had numerous needles stuck in me during the past year and the phlebotomist/medic always says the same thing - 'Sharp scratch'. If they're skilled and confident at what they are doing, it's just that; if they aren't, it would be more accurate to say 'And now I am going to stick something in you that feels as though it's been recycled many times and I'm going to wiggle it round when it's in your arm'. I have a feeling that the spending review will feel as though it's in the former group when in reality, it's in the latter.

Billions of pounds lopped off departmental budgets is going to hurt like a bastard eventually but the world won't fall apart during the next 24 hours. Instead, it heralds the beginning of a slow decline in services and infrastructure for the UK. Posts may not be made redundant en masse but retiring colleagues, colleagues with new jobs outside the organisation or seconded out or moving departments may not be replaced. For some people, it will be a case of looking round a half-empty office in a year's time and realising that the reason they are working an extra 10 hours a week to stand still is because nowadays they ARE the team.

A friend said to me last week-end that she predicted the outright closure of some smaller universities given the size of the savings target set for the Department of Education. So look out Winchester University and Whatsit College in Cleethorpes: your days are numbered. Surely it would make more sense to take a league table of universities and just stop funding the bottom third of it? Harsh but any less fair than keeping open the remaining two departments of Scumbag College so that 100 students a year can be educated? I don't know how robust the Sunday Times annual league table is but if the results bear any relation to reality, then the University of West London, nee Thames Valley University, needn't bother opening it's doors this Monday.

Alternatively, the ConDems could stop this insanity, realise that decent quality education is what we should be aiming for and start expanding and funding courses that add something to the skill level or sum total of human knowledge in this country? Something that I don't believe for one minute you get when every Further Education College in the country has been turned into a university. I'm not arguing for a return to Brideshead Revisited but less mediocrity and meaningless degrees would not go amiss.