[ENS] Welcome to Education Not for Sale

[Josh Robinson]

Dear All,

Welcome to the Education Not for Sale list.  ENS is a network of left-wing 
students who came together in the run-up to and at this year's NUS conference 
to do a few things

i) Start organising a serious challenge to the right-wing, bureaucratic, 
increasingly apolitical leadership of NUS in the name of a student 
movement that actually fights on the key issues such as top-up fees, 
grants, the minimum wage, education-funding.

ii) Stand up and fight within the broader left of the student movement for 
progressive and left-wing values such as freedom of speech, secularism, 
women's liberation.

iii) Provide a a democratic space for debate and exchange of ideas on the
student left.

We had a meeting last month which agreed to set up an email information 
list (ie this one) and mandated Daniel Randall (from Nottingham, NUS 
exec-elect) and John Blake (president of Oxford University SU) to draft a 
founding statement.  We also agreed to hold another meeting on June 4th. 
One thing about this is that a lot of people have said emailed us saying 
that the 4th is too soon, particularly with exams etc - so should we think 
about another date?

There is a website www.free-education.org which is run by David Broder
from Guildford and is starting to be updated.  If you have anything to put
on it, his address is david_communist at yahoo.co.uk

We're in the process of setting up an open discussion and planning list. I 
think John and Daniel's draft statement should be out soon, so perhaps 
people could email Daniel with comments -- skillz_999 at hotmail.com .  It 
would be good to have a draft agreed in time for NUS LGB conference next 
weekend.

In solidarity,

Josh Robinson
Tom Dale
Sacha Ismael