Reg was doubtful.

Henry was dead against it, and as justification launched into as concise and straightforward a precis of the theory of surplus value as I have ever heard. Where did you dig that up from? Andy asked. Oh, I read books, Henry dodged. What book is that from? Henry drew his lips over his toothless gums, smiling a trapped smile. Karl Marx. And we all laughed. The conversation broadened out. Andy mentioned something about Albert Finney in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Don pulled the paperback edition out of his pocket. A bit later, Reg, shuffling in his pockets for a cigarette, withdrew a leaflet on how to grow dahlias. The T & GW official back at the Labour Party rooms hadnt been entirely right about the telly. Andy asked what the men thought of the sitdown bomb protest in Whitehall, which had been just the Saturday before. Henry thought it was very good. Over 800 arrested. That shows the movement is growing, doesnt it? The others agreed. We talked about how you get socialism. Don wanted it, all right, but was unsure how it could be won. Henry, speaking from the experience of his age, put it this way: When my father started in the docks, he had it far worse than I did, when I started. And my son, hes had it easier than I did at the start. Why, even now he sees things wrong that wouldnt bother me, because of the different ways we look at things. And he takes those things up, and some of them get sorted out. Well, you see now we have a little strike here in the docks, and we all stick together. This strike will probably be over on Thurdsay. And all the time, conditions get a little better. I asked if he didnt see any hope of getting socialism in our time. Theres only two things that would bring socialism in this country. One is a return to depression, like we went through in the 30s. Then youd get an insurrection. Or a warwar would do it. He didnt think either would happen. After nearly three hours of talking, we broke up. Henry went with Andy and me to the train station, talking about Tim OLeary and how he was himself a docker until he went to Ruskin a few years ago. Hell be knighted soon, just you see. We passed the call stand where a small band of men were lined up for the one oclock hiring or proving attendance so they could collect their fall-back money.

Later, some of them came into the waitingroom at the station. After we got on the train, Henry said: You know those blokes who were waiting in the station? Theyd just been trying to get jobs. Now they knew who I was and I knew who they were. But I wouldnt start anythingtalking to them or anything like that. They arent our enemy. The guvnors are the enemy, and theres nothing theyd like better than to set us working men to fighting each other. You see, weve learned from our experience.

SCOTTISH TEACHERS REVOLT

by Norman Buchan
no doubt that the Glasgow teachers strike on May 8 had a profound effect upon all teachers, North and South of the border. Strike is a dirty word to some teachers, an unattainable demonstration of militancy to many more. But the Glasgow teachers have shown that the strike is now a realistic weapon in the struggle to maintain and advance educational standards. In a section of the community preoccupied with demands for professional recognition, the strike has produced a feeling of self-respect and confidence. The Glasgow teachers immediate demands were: an acceptable salary scale; the withdrawal of the governments dilution proposals. But many of the strikes causes are part of a more general background. Scotland has had intense pride in her educational traditions for centuries, but in recent years she had had to watch with growing exasperation the erosion of her educational standards by Government neglect and even by direct attack. This year, for example, Lanarkshire, the second biggest educational area in Scotland, faced a cut of 10 million in her school-building programme over the next five years. This was due, technically, to the operation of the block grant in capital allocation to local authorities, a system teachers had fought desperately but vainly. Now hundreds of building projects, from complete new buildings to extensive re-modelling, are threatened. Page after page of the County Council minutes on the building position lists various categories: Cases where provision is impossible
THERE IS

64

without new buildings, (13 cases); Cases where provision is impossible unless children are transported (sic) and distributed among a number of schools (9 cases); Cases where provision can be made only in buildings totally unfit for further use (6 cases); Cases where provision can be made only in grossly overcrowded conditions (5 cases); Serious cases of overcrowding in substandard accommodation (8 cases). Ninety-seven schools to be built entirely or extended or completely remodelled. And another 80 schools proposed for remodelling or minor extensions. From the needed Government grant of 16 million towards this rebuilding and modernising programme (this from a programme in which every single item had already been approved as educationally necessary by the Education Department itself) the Exchequer has lopped off 10 million. Brooman-White, Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, excused the cuts as due to insufficient technical resources. In a country where unnecessary but profitable petrol service stations spread like toadstools, only one new Senior Secondary School has been built since the war! Private affluence and public squalor at its meanest. So there was anger over the physical conditions of our schools. There was anger too at the staffing situation. About 2,000 uncertificated persons were being employed in Scotland in a desperate attempt to conceal the shortage. Of these, nearly 700 were admitted by the Department itself to be seriously below any acceptable educational standards. In Calderhead Junior Secondary School in Lanarkshire, nearly half of the total teaching staff were uncertificated. In two of the four schools chosen to implement the still experimental O Level Certificate, 36 out of a total teaching staff of 126 were uncertificated. Now there is only one solution when you are short of educational facilities . . . staff or buildings. Spend more money. The Government refused. But not enough people with the right qualifications were coming forward (no wonder! Teaching salaries were compared to salaries in private industry and commerce by intelligent students). What half-measure would offer the illusion of full-staffing? The Government found a solution. Lower the qualifications. When you dredge low enough, if you cant get the mackerel at least youll get the sprats. Now, the distinctive mark of Scottish education has always been the high qualifications of teachers. Forty-seven per cent of Scottish teachers are university graduates compared to 18 in England. No male teacher can enter the profession to teach either academic subjects in a Secondary school or general subjects in a primary school unless he possess a University degree. This

had been true for the last 40 years; the next stage was to make graduation necessary for women. But this step has not been taken. The Government now propose to turn the clock back 40 years. They produced their now infamous memorandum on the training of teachers, heavily marked not to be communicated to the press. This blatant piece of coat-trailing proposed, as a suggestion, that male non-graduates should now be recruited. The Government peddled the argument equality for menas if equal pay should come about by lowering male wages. The teachers quickly rejected this equality in squalor. Years of ineffectual negotiating on salaries, pension rights, school conditions; a growing frustration at lack of power in determining educational policy, in determining conditions of entry; growing resentment at deteriorating school conditions; all this developed a mood of anger and undirected militancy throughout Scotland. A real grass roots movement simultaneously broke out in various schools. From St. Augustines, a Roman Catholic Senior Secondary School in Glasgow, came the clearest statement of the teachers case and a call for strike if the main demands were not immediately met. Then the Glasgow Committee of the E.I.S., the main teachers organisation, acted. They gave the Secretary of State until May 1 to produce adequate salary scales and withdraw the memorandum on dilution or else face a weeks strike in Glasgow. A mass meeting of teachers enthusiastically endorsed their attitude. The Government was unequivocally challenged. The strike was engaged. A small school in Clackmannan immediately issued an appeal to schools throughout Scotland to give 5 per head to support the strike. Pledges flowed in from all over the country. Finally the National Executive endorsed the strike action and organised the strike fund themselves. The strike itself astonished even the Glasgow leadership. Inexperienced though they were, they threw themselves into the campaign like seasoned industrial veterans. Clear and concise advice was given to all teachers. Strike committees were established in every school. Leaflets were issued to parents, explaining the purpose of the strike. The E.I.S. decided on what exceptions were to be made. A working unity was formed with other teacher organisations. Over 5,000 of the citys 7,000 teachers struck and remained out through a highly disciplined week. Eighty-five per cent of the teachers called upon stayed out. The word strike was no longer dirty. But difficulties still lie ahead. If these are to be overcome, the lessons of May 8 must be learned. First, the sympathy of the public was overwhelmingly on the side of the teachers. Head-

65

masters came back to school on the Monday to receive many letters from parents congratulating them and asking what they can do to assist. Even before the week started, this sympathy appeared. One headmaster, sending out the slips to instruct parents about the closing of his school, asked that they be signed and returned to show they had been received. Many came back with comments of encouragement added by parents. A group of Marist Brothers, employed as teachers in St. Aloysius School could not strike because of their vows but refused their weeks salary as an indication of their sympathy with the action. The reaction to the huge meeting in the Kelvin Hall suggested that the action was even bigger in its implications than had perhaps been realised. A feeling was abroad that this, a defensive action to preserve standards, contained within it the seeds of a rejuvenation of Scottish pride in our education as the centre of our way of life. And this feeling is one that the Executive of the E.I.S. will ignore at their peril. The salary scale now imposed upon Scottish teachers comes nowhere near their demandsour non-graduate women are being given 160 per annum less than that already refused by the N.U.T. in the Burnham award. The Secretary of State has still not withdrawn his dilution proposals. The clearest lesson to be drawn from May 8 is that it is the start of action, not the end, and that teachers too will respond to bold and intelligent leadership.

The next issue of NLR will be our special education supplement. This deals with primary schools, grammar, secondary and comprehensive education, and the problems of testing and evaluating intelligence scientifically. The material has been gathered together and shaped by Brian Jackson, and includes a piece on primary schools by himself, and other contributions by A. H. Halsey, Douglas Brown, David Holbrook, and Tony Crowe. It is written as a report on English education from the classroom rather than as a formal report, and should provide an excellent introduction for further discussion among teachers and others interested in this issue. We should be glad to have comments on the Supplement, and to hear of any discussions or study groups which use it as a basis for further work.

The Northern Left Clubs Committee is running a week-end school at Habden, in the Yorkshire Dales, September 16th17th. The School will be divided in half; Denis Butt, who has written on Workers Control in this issue, and on the Motor Industry in NLR3, and Eric Heffer, a leading Liverpool socialist and Trades Council officer, will take a session on Work, Wages and Leisure, and Michael Barratt Brown, who now lectures in the Extra-Mural Department at Sheffield, will introduce a discussion on The Common Market. Cost for the weekend will be 35s., details from Northern Committee Secretary, Allan Horsfall, 19 Lane Ends, Nelson, Lancs. Phone: Nelson 63552.

The experimental theatre, In-Stage, described in our Notebook by Charles Marowitz, is a noncommercial theatre devoted to new writers and new plays. In October it will present the first professional production of the plays of Arthur Adamov. This experiment needs help and money, and if you can spare either, they will be welcomed. Contributions to In-Stage, 9 Fitzroy Square, London, W.1.

NEW LEFT NOTES

announced in the first article on the Economic Implications of the Common Market is now in preparation and will be available soon. Clubs interested in taking a block order should write in early so that copies can be mailed off to them in good order. It is written by John Hughes and Michael Barratt Brown, and should provide the basis for an excellent discussion or meeting on this vitally important topic.
THE PAMPHLET

We are planning to produce the daily Junius-sheet, This Week, at the Labour Party conference at Blackpool again this year. If readers of the journal are going to be in Blackpool that week, and would like to keep in touch with the contingent, would they please write to us for further details? We urgently need volunteers for the many tasks of production and distribution too and any financial help you could offer to float the venture.

Contributors to this issue: David Armstrong is an industrial psychologist at the Tavistock Institute, who is working on a project in Wales . . . Perry Anderson, who has been writing for us about Sweden, is now at work for Africa Research Projects on a study of Portuguese-Angola relations . . . Philip Aldis is an architect-planner, member of the London Club Housing Group which is currently at work . . . Gordon Reece is on the London Club Committee and a Maths student at London University.

66