29/10/2013
RESOLUTION
The conference which was organised by FISE and the WFTU in Brussels on 28-29 October on the subject “the role of the teachers in today’s school” decided the following:
The attack against teachers, students and education in general is inextricably linked with the attack against the working class and the popular strata all over the world. In order to overcome the consequences of the capitalist crisis , a crisis which is bred by the capitalist system itself, capital is intensifying its assault, abolishing rights and gains, closing schools, dismissing teachers, reducing salaries, increasing intimidation and investing huge funds in the propaganda concerning the new school that serves the needs of the market and the monopolies.
The teachers must fulfill their role and meet the challenges as teachers and scientists.
They should teach the lesson of historical and scientific truth, the lesson of the just cause of the people’s, of the poor and the oppressed. The teachers have to disobey even if they have these anti-scientific and unacceptable books. They should not teach these lies that imperialism plans to inculcate in the innocent minds of schools students.
Anticommunicm is medievalism and the teachers should not become “cardinals” of the inquisition. They should resist by all means to the effort of the EU and the capitalist organizations to equate Nazism with communism. They should struggle on a daily basis for the defeat of the phenomena of racism, xenophobia and the development of fascist ideology.
The teachers are responsible for what the students are taught and they should search for the scientific truth and resist the anti-scientific and reactionary guidelines of the school books which are based on the policy of the imperialists. The teachers have the duty not to reproduce the anti-people propaganda but contribute to the formation of consciousness that resist and do not submit. The target of the campaign for the subjugation of education in general and the consciousness in particular to the interests of the monopolies is the people’s movement, the working people, and their interests, their children.
In this effort it is necessary to assist and support all the well-intentioned teachers , all the honest educators , all the militant teachers who want to fight for scientific and historical truth. At the same time, we should fight decisively against all those who struggle against those who fabricate, those who slander, all the experts in the propaganda of the system that breed the system of exploitation of man by man.
It is necessary to organise the counterattack on the basis of the educational content of the school and the contemporary educational needs in terms of ideology, in terms of movement and on the basis of the position of the teachers and the education, for a way out and the prospect of the liberation of the working class from the chains of the capitalist exploitation.
Today the bourgeois schools all over the world claim that they want to create people with a comprehensive education. We know that this is an outright lie because our society is based on the division of the people in classes, those who exploit and those who are being oppressed.
The knowledge of history provides strength in the struggle to change the world. Historical materialism, the philosophy of Marxism concerning social development explains the world in a scientific way and provides the confidence that this world can change and will change.
The teachers of the trade unions who are members of FISE, the teachers who agree with the line of FISE have the duty to reinforce in the consciousness of the young people that the cause of the working class is just and that it has the power to realize it.
FISE will take initiatives in 2014 so as to reinforce the internationalist character of its affiliates, so as to improve the joint action with the class-oriented unions and develop relations of practical solidarity with unions and peoples who fight in a class oriented direction.
For 2014
- Our goal is to organize a seminar in each continent on the general problems that concern the teachers, the parents, the students.
- To organize meetings in each continent in order to realize the decisions of the Presidium.
In addition it was decided:
- To initiate a campaign against the commercialization of education and the downgrading of the public and free education. The title of the campaign shall be “the education is not a commodity, it a social good”.
- To attempt to organise a meeting in the Arab countries.
- To organize a preparatory meeting in Caracas, Venezuela on 3rd February for the event that will take place in September 2014 concerning the decolonization of the education and the national liberation of the peoples with the participation of teachers from Venezuela, Mexico, Honduras, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia.
- To start a two-month campaign in February-March 2014 that will address all the unions in order to collect pencils, maps, etc for schools that need them e.g. in Uganda and Palestine.
- On 9th May, the day of the antifascist victory to develop actions, to take initiatives against fascism, against the fascist Nazi activity that develops in each country addressing teachers and above all school students and students.
- To organize an event for the problems that teachers and students face in Palestine due to the Israeli occupation on 28/6/2014.
- On 10-12/9/2014 to organize in Caracas Venezuela an event with 700 trade unionists from the teachers’ movement with the subject “on the decolonization of the education and the national liberation of the peoples” and submit a proposal for an education that will resist the capitalist system.
- To participate in the world day of the WFTU on 3 October
- To take initiatives for protests in embassies e.g. in Chile, Mexico etc on 5th October, the Teachers’ World Day.
- To participate in the meeting of the International Labour Office. To take measures for the representation of the FISE in UNESCO and the International Labour Office .
- To take initiatives for the days determined by UNESCO and the other international institutions as days dedicated to the people with special needs, against the violence in schools, eradication poverty, against racism etc.
WE STRENGTHEN THE CLASS SOLIDARITY
WE STRENGTHEN FISE
WE STRENGTHEN THE WFTU