Democratising education – UCU Green New Deal (South West)

Democratising Education UCU Green New Deal: 18 October 2pm-330pm

This interactive workshop will explore the vision for democratising education as part of progressing a Green New Deal in education institutions. The focus will be on why and how branch members can build for power to organise and campaign for democratic governance structures with a view to ensuring fair and just practices and decision making. 

The first half of the session will explore what a truly democratic education institution would look and feel like and why this is an essential component if we are going to address the climate crisis. The second half will focus on how members can get involved in helping local branches to use the GND bargaining and negotiation framework to democratise their institutions.   

Learning aims:.  

1. understand the meaning of democratising education  
2. realise the interconnection between democratising education and the climate crisis
3. be able to communicate with branch members and the student movement on democratising education to progress the UCU Green New Deal
4. gain an awareness of what others are doing to democratise.

How the workshops will work

The taught sessions will last for about 60 minutes, after which time it may be possible to take 15-20 minutes to discuss the issues raised with a UCU official, depending on availability. In that case the total time commitment will be less than an hour and a half.

You will need to find a quiet space, away from distractions (like telephone and email!), and you may prefer to use headphones for the session. I would also recommend that you check that you can use zoom before the session if you are unfamiliar with it.

You will then be sent a meeting number and password for the workshop using zoom, along with a couple of points to think about before the workshop. You will be able to join the session from about 10 minutes before the stated start time. I would also recommend that you do join 5 to 10 minutes early as you will need to be admitted to the session, and of course there can be technical problems.

fully participate in UCU CPD sessions so if you need us to make any additional facilities available to you please get in touch as soon as you can. We will do everything possible to help.

In solidarity,
Glen Pickard and Tracy Walsh
Learning and Development Coordinators
UCU CPD