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Fighting FE's corner in media obsession with schools

23 April 2008

A quick riposte was sent to the Guardian when the coverage of FE was subbed out of Monday's story on the forthcoming industrial action.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt's letter to the Guardian, published today, draws attention to the bleak prospects for the sector: 'Your report (Teachers' strike could shut 1,000 schools, April 21) fails to mention the anger over pay in 250 colleges in England, where thousands of lecturers will also be on strike tomorrow. UCU college lecturers will be taking action alongside their NUT schoolteacher colleagues under the banner "our schools, our colleges, our communities". Lecturers - supposedly at the heart of the government's skills strategy - get 6% less on average than schoolteachers, even where they do comparable work with comparable students. Compare lecturers' pay with practitioners' in the trades and industries where college students are heading and the position is much worse.

'The picture painted in a new independent survey conducted for the UCU heralds a bleak future. It shows a dedicated workforce hugely dissatisfied with their pay and treatment. Pay, work-life balance and insecurity dominate the list of grievances. Yet 90% of students are satisfied with their lecturers, 97% of colleges were judged satisfactory or better in the latest Ofsted inspection round and FE is hitting government targets ahead of time. The UCU says lecturers' pay must keep up with price rises and the pay gap with schools must be closed. It's not much to ask for staff delivering so much for nearly 4 million young people and adults.'

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Last updated: 14 December 2015

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