S2E13 Education: Larissa Kennedy on Inequality and Adversity

The battle against inequality in education is being fought on multiple fronts at the moment. Tuition fees have for years been widening the gap between the rich and the poor, and that gap has only been exacerbated by the global pandemic. Students are not only campaigning against this problem from home, they’re also dealing with the mental health issues associated with lockdown, learning remotely, and bringing issues of colonialism and racial discrimination to the fore. It’s a lot. Larissa Kennedy took up office as president of the UK’s National Union of Students in the throes of the pandemic, and has been leading the charge in unprecedented circumstances. She tells us about the action she took amid the A-levels fiasco, explains the recent explosion of student activism in the UK, and discusses the Decolonise campaign. In this episode we learn how adversity forges togetherness, why tokenism in storytelling is dangerous, and how some of the most painful issues lie just beneath the surface. Behind The Spine is the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon - you can sign up to the newsletter here.