Lisbon: Debate on privatizations in the education sector

iberia | workplace struggles | press release Tuesday October 17, 2006 20:40 by AC-Interpro - Associação de Classe Interprofissional acinterpro at gmail dot com

Friday 27th October at 6.30pm
At the "Biblioteca-Museu da República e Resistência",
Rua Alberto de Sousa, 10-A, Zona B do Rego, Lisbon.

On 27th October, as part of the "Inter-category Days" organized by AC-Interpro (Associação de Classe Interprofissional) - a grassroots anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist trade union - we will be analyzing the various steps taken in this country and throughout Europe in order to transform public education into a tool of neo-liberal capitalism.

We will be studying the various "reforms" that have been made, the mechanisms used to transfer responsability for important aspects of lower-level education to autarchies, and the out-sourcing of a range of public services (canteens, bars, cleaning, etc.).

With regard to higher-level education, we will also be examining the real objectives of the Bologna "reforms" and we will continue to denounce the various tricks used (not to mention the implicit approval on the part of the mainstream unions) in this neo-liberal plan - as anti-democratic as it is anti-cultural - to turn secondary education into a business where the only criteria will be the law of supply and demand, where the rules will be dictated by big business and big industry.

Other events in the "Inter-category Days" are:

• Sunday 29th October, 10.00am
  * A visit to various trade union premises around Lisbon
• Friday 10th November, 6.30pm
  * Debate: Accidents in the workplace - how to prevent them?
• Wednesday 29th November, 6.30pm
  * Debate: Globalizing the class struggle in Portugal