The Canterbury-Bankstown Teachers Association has passed a motion encouraging its members to “refuse to refer students to any program that is sponsored by weapons manufacturing corporations, and to refuse to promote them.”
The motion further calls on the NSW Education Department to “implement its own inappropriate materials policy, by proactively monitoring school program providers and ensuring that programs offered to NSW schools have ethical partnership policies that prevent any ties to the weapons industry.”
In 2023, the NSW Education Department accepted our recommendation to add weapons manufacturers to the list of harmful industries that must not associate with schools. However, the department has failed to monitor the weapons industry’s engagement with schools or implement the policy. The department has also defended its own direct links with the weapons industry, telling Teachers for Peace in correspondence that policies that apply to schools don’t apply to the department itself.
In lieu of proper action from the Education Department, Teacher’s Associations are properly and proactively working to protect schoolchildren from harmful influence, and from complicity with human misery in Palestine and beyond,
Congratulations to Canterbury-Bankstown Teachers Association!
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