Tony Benn is urging pupils in his Chesterfield constituency to turn their schools into campaigning organisations, using media res-ources and information technology to publicise cuts in education funding and to oppose school selection, writes Frances Rafferty.
At a prize-giving ceremony to-night at Newbold community school, he will argue that schools should become active in their community: “Local democracy is being strangled and councillors are being made agents of Treasury policy designed to meet the demands of the gamblers and speculators who now control governments.
“The attacks on public expenditure, competitive tax cutting and the return to selective schooling must be resisted if we are to provide the lifelong education we need and we must find new ways of campaigning to get our case across to the community.”
“With a general election coming, people have the power to decide their own future by putting pressure on the candidates and leaders of all parties, ” he said.