HENRY FOWLER, assistant general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), reports on Day 2 from the GFTU’s residential Summer School at the Workers’ Retreat, Quorn Grange Hotel
AS A school governor I have heard a lot about the “recovery curriculum” recently and as a trade unionist I’ve read a good deal about the “emergency curriculum” — but what I’m really interested in as a socialist educator is a curriculum that paves an alternative road out of this pandemic that our schools could take and build for a different and better future.
Curriculum development has, for me, always been concerned with three interwoven strands: the development of skills, knowledge and general education/enrichment with entitlement as its strong backbone.
In short, our curriculum needs to be bigger, broader and braver.
HENRY FOWLER outlines the GFTU’s new 2026-27 education programme and argues that investing in trade union education is essential to building worker power, developing leaders and strengthening collective action
Afghan women living under the Taliban are navigating a system that makes their public existence conditional on male approval, writes SHUKRIA RAHIMI
BEN CHACKO welcomes a masterful analysis that puts class struggle back at the heart of our understanding of China’s revolution
A teaching delegation to Cuba offered IAN DUCKETT a powerful glimpse into a schooling system defined by care, creativity and the legacy of the island’s remarkable 1961 literacy campaign


