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Remember the Plebs League?
• MANY of your readers will have attended evening classes in Camden over the years but I wonder if anyone knows about the Plebs League and its successor the National Council of Labour Colleges (NCLC)?
The Plebs League and NCLC ran thousands of classes all over the country from 1909 until the 1960s and successfully taught thousands of working-class people to think critically and independently.
This year is the 100th anniversary of what was probably the first-ever education strike in Britain at Ruskin College in Oxford, which led to the formation of the Plebs League, a group made up of working-class trade union activists who fought for independent working-class education. They pioneered many of today’s teaching methods with their emphasis on involving and listening to students.
To mark the anniversary, Colin Waugh has written a pamphlet called “Plebs” which outlines the history of this lost tradition and we hope that this will help to ignite a debate on adult education.
If you ever attended Plebs or NCLC classes in Camden please let us know or come to a meeting with the author on Sunday March 1 at 2pm at the Lucas Arms pub in Grays Inn Road.
Dave Welsh
Foundling Court,
Brunswick Centre, WC1 |
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