Along with speakers from our branch and the student Palestine solidarity campaign at King’s, we will be hearing from Sundos Hammad from Birzeit University and the Right to Education campaign, along with Maxine Looby, the President of the University and College Union (UCU), and Ahmed Abu Shaban from Al-Azhar University and the Emergency Committee of Universities in Gaza. Even though Israeli bombardments have targeted and destroyed all university campuses, and killed thousands of students and members of staff in Gaza, Higher Education institutions are doing their best to continue teaching and learning. We have a role to play here to support these heroic efforts and resist scholasticide. While we continue to mobilise and redouble our efforts to stop the genocide, and Britain’s active role in it, we can challenge the complicity of UK Higher Education institutions, pushing for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel, and put pressure on our universities to support the reconstruction of Gaza’s education sector. Speakers from national and local UCU will report on progress being made on these fronts, and the continuing struggles and negotiations our union is engaged in along with the Palestine solidarity student movement.

This event is part of a national speaking tour organised by University and College Workers for Palestine and BRICUP with support from UCU. At King’s it is being co-hosted by the Contemporary Marxism Research Group and the KCL UCU branch.

SPEAKERS

The Right to Education campaign is a grassroots Palestinian movement which began in 1988 in order to document, research and raise consciousness about the oppression of Palestinian students, teachers and academic institutions under Israeli military occupation. They work to empower students to claim their human right to education, to overcome the isolation of Palestinian educational institutions and to demand an end to the illegal Israeli occupation.

The Emergency Committee for Universities in Gaza has been established by Al Aqsa University, Al Azhar University and the Islamic University of Gaza, the three largest not-for-profit public Gaza universities, which between them represent the majority of students and academics in Gaza. The work of the Emergency Committee is facilitated by international colleagues. The Emergency Committee will be dedicated to serving the collective needs of Gaza universities during this emergency period by mobilising international support for their rebuilding and working to ensure that assistance is provided in partnership with Gaza universities so that teaching and study resumes at higher education institutions in Gaza at the earliest opportunity.