UCU members at Tyne Metropolitan College take the campaign to Stephen Byers

The campiagn to SAVE ESOL has taken many forms in the region. Here, UCU members at Tyne Metropolitan College tell us what they have been doing to influence government policy.

"In the ESOL department here at Tyne Met we encouraged students to write to their local MPs to tell them how the funding cuts will affect them. As a consequence, Stephen Byers offered to come and talk to them and staff (the college is in his constituency). He came and listened to students, assured them he agreed with their views, and said he would raise their concerns with the Secretary of State. He also urged more students to write to him, so their letters could be used in evidence. His personal feeling was that the government should backtrack on this issue, given the contradictions with their integration policy.

On the day Mr Byers was here, the union branch and ESOL staff organised a stall to publicize the ESOL situation within the college (seven out of ten lecturers in the department are due to be redeployed – they don’t know where yet). Staff and students who are not directly involved knew very little about the situation, but we raised a lot of interest – and awareness: we collected hundreds of signatures for the UCU petition and gave out leaflets about the demonstration in Newcastle."


Guy Bainbridge
Andrew Potts



UCU

Tyne Metropolitan College