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The General Federation
of Trade Unions
The General Federation
of Trade Unions
Educational Trust
in conjunction
with affiliates
and education
officers has
comprehensively
reviewed its
education
provision
.
Over the next two years we will provide more
education opportunities, more flexibly to more
learners at all levels in the unions.
We believe trade union education must be
kept public and not privatised and delivered by
unregulated companies. We believe all unions
want value for money in education delivery and
quality learning that will grow a new generation
of leaders and activists in the unions.
We have made new and strengthened long
established partnerships with institutions
committed to excellence in trade union
education delivery. We are pleased this year to
be working closely with Ruskin and Northern
Colleges and the University of Wolverhampton.
We work wherever we can with the Workers’
Education Association, Culture Matters, and the
network of Independent Working Class Education
activists. We have promoted the pioneering work
of many overseas trade union educators, most
recently the work of ESNA in Latin America. More
such partnerships will develop this year.
We have established a new network of academics
and trainers keen to support trade union learning
for our affiliates.
We continue to provide customised training
for many unions, we manage education
administration for some and we regularly
hold meetings for education officers as our
contribution to their continuing professional
development.
We have created an opportunity for
educationalists to network to develop the
trade union education curriculum and will in
2017 produce a book of essays on trade union
“It is impossible to write the history of
freedom in this country without telling how
trade unions have contributed to it.”
Michael Foot.
“We want to see the necessary economic
knowledge imparted in our labour
organisations, so that labour in the future
shall not be made the shuttlecock of political
parties. Our Trade Unions shall be centres of
enlightenment and not merely the meeting
place for paying contributions and receiving
donations…our ideal is a co operative
commonwealth.”
Tom Mann and Ben Tillett, The ‘New’ Trade Unionism, 1890.