The Future is Public
- FREE
- 2h 11 min
- English
- Interdisciplinary, Political Science, Social Sciences & Humanities
- with certificate upgrade option
What is the course about?
This online course discusses key issues affecting the quality and accessibility of public services as well as new, emerging visions in sectors such as health, energy, transport, water and others. In particular, through struggles to resist commercialisation of public services and the environmental crisis, workers and trade unions, in coalition with other social movements, can play a fundamental role in the realisation of these visions.
Check our trailer here.
Key concepts
quality public services, transformation, equality, transparency, democracy, care for the environment, trade unions, social movements, commodification of public services, privatisation.
Course materials and workload
This course has 5 content chapters. The chapter contains a series of units; each unit is composed of one video lecture, two quiz questions, one exercise, one key reading as well as additional readings. All the course materials, including video scripts, can be downloaded and used offline. Zoom workshops with the course experts are recorded and added to the course content for those interested in going deeper into the issues discussed in each video lecture.
The estimated workload for each chapter is 7-8 hours.
Course certificates
Certificates are available for purchase from iversity.
If you meet the course requirements, you can obtain a scholarship from the Global Labour University. For details on the requirements, read carefully the information in Chapter 1, Unit 2.
Localised workshops
The Global Labour University Online Academy will also organise a series of blended interventions through its network of more than 100 local trainers in 33 countries, namely:
Austria, Bangladesh, Argentina, Belgium, Benin, Brazi, Bolivia, Cameroon, China, Chile, Cambodia, Colombia, Ghana, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Vietnam, Germany, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Liberia, Philippines, South Africa, Serbia, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, United States, Uganda, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Let us know if you want to join a localised workshop by sending an email to online@global-labour-university.org detailing your country, city and organisation. For more details, check Chapter 1 of our online course.
What will you learn?
Upon completing this online course, the course participants will be able to:
- state key facts on the importance of public services for cohesive societies;
- explain the key barriers to achieving universal, accessible quality public services and demonstrate how these key barriers apply to their particular context;
- examine and problematise the underlying structures and conditions, which undermine the delivery of universal, accessible quality public services in their own countries;
- argue in support of a radical transformation of public services based on enhanced funding and expansion of public services on values of equity, participation, efficiency, quality of service, accountability, transparency, quality of the workplace, sustainability, solidarity and public ethos;
- appraise what needs to change in key public sectors such as health and care, transport, energy, water and others in their own countries; and
- formulate ideas for the transformation of public services in their own countries informed by examples of struggles for new visions of public services in countries across the world.
What is the target audience?
workers, trade unionists, labour and other activists, labour researchers and practitioners, NGOs, students, media and others.
What prior knowledge is required?
This is a multi-disciplinary course drawing on the fields of social, political and economic sciences. It is at the level of a Masters’ programme, but the concepts are explained in an accessible language and illustrated through examples. Therefore, it is also possible to participate in the course using the skills and knowledge acquired. The course requires a working level of English.
Course instructors
Edlira Xhafa
Edlira Xhafa is the Executive Director of the Online Academy of the Global Labour University. She has a master's degree in Labour Policies and Globalisation from the Global Labour University (Germany) and holds a PhD in Labour Studies from the University of Milan, Italy. Since 2000, she has been engaged with national trade unions in her home country Albania, as well as in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Myanmar. She has also worked for, and collaborated with Education International, Public Services International, Building and Wood Workers' International, International Labour Organisation, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and others.
Alana Dave
Alana Dave là Giám đốc Giao thông Đô thị tại Liên đoàn Công nhân Vận tải Quốc tế (ITF), có trụ sở tại London. Alana điều hành chương trình toàn cầu của ITF về giao thông công cộng, bao gồm một số dự án chiến lược về tác động tới lao động và các vấn đề của người lao động, bao gồm cả việc chuyển đổi từ việc làm phi chính thức sang chính thức. Bà đã đã điều hành việc phát triển chính sách giao thông công cộng của công đoàn toàn cầu nhằm thúc đẩy mạnh mẽ hơn việc làm bền vững, chính thức hóa, công bằng xã hội và khí hậu, và bình đẳng giới. Alana đại diện cho ITF trong các mối quan hệ đối ngoại với các nhà hoạch định chính sách và các nhà tuyển dụng của hệ thống phương tiện giao thông công cộng.
Christoph Scherrer
Christoph Scherrer is professor for Globalization and Politics and executive director of the International Center for Development and Decent Work at the University of Kassel and a member of Steering Committee of the Global Labour University.
Baba Aye
Baba Aye is the Health and Social Sector Officer for Public Services International (PSI), the world wide body linking public sector trade unions with a combined membership of over 30 million across 154 countries.
He Is also the Vice President of Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2). He worked for two decades in the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN) before leaving as Deputy General Secretary to join PSI. He was also the pioneering Coordinating Secretary of the West African Health Sector Unions Network (WAHSUN) and a contributing editor of the Review of African Political Economy [RoAPE]
Baba has represented organised labour on several international health panels of experts and guidelines development groups. He is currently a member of the WHO Health Emergencies Program (WHE) ad-hoc COVID-19 IPC guidance development group of experts (COVID-19 IPC GDG) & the WHO 2020 World Patient Safety Day Steering Committee.
Dr Frank Hoffer
Dr Frank Hoffer is a research fellow of the Global Labour University. He studied in Bremen, London and Moscow. He holds a PhD in Economics. During his professional career, Frank Hoffer was a Labour Attache at the Germany Embassy in Moscow, worked as a senior research officer at the International Labour Organisation and served as the Executive Director of the ACT Foundation. His main areas of interest and research are social policy, wage policies and the application of international labour standards. He is a non-executive director of the GLU Online Academy board
SungHee Oh
SungHee Oh is the Director of International Affairs of the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers' Union (KPTU).
Before joining the KPTU, she worked for the Korean Government Employees' Union (KGEU) for about 10 years and was the Secretary for Human Rights and Solidarity of the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan for more than 3 years.
Her expertise and interests lie in quality public services, labour rights, women's rights and past human rights violations committed by the state.
mercy nabwire
sean sweeney
Mr Colin Long
Just Transitions Officer at Victorian Trades Hall Council, Melbourne, Australia.
Bruno Dobrusin
Bruno es el coordinador de la Academia Online de la GLU. Actualmente está basado en Toronto, Canada. Durante siete años fue asesor en la Secretaria de Relaciones Internacionales de la Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina (CTA). Posee un doctorado en Ciencias Sociales por la Universidad de Buenos Aires y es graduado de la GLU habiendo realizado la Maestría en Globalización y Trabajo en el Tata Institute of Social Sciences en India.
