Details finalised for Halesowen demo over sacking of four trade unionists on Saturday

Demonstrators will start to assemble outside Halesowen College on Whittingham Road from 9.30am. The college open day starts at 10am and the governors are meeting at the same time.

At 10.45am the march to Halesowen town centre will start and is expected to return to the college at around 11.30am, where a rally will take place. Speakers include UCU's national head of further education, Barry Lovejoy.

The increasingly bitter dispute between the college and UCU centres on the sacking of four maths lecturers. The union says all four teachers had good records and it was the college's failings and selective use of information that allowed them to get rid of the staff.

There were no issues related to lecturers' competence, none had conduct issues cited in their dismissal and the college admitted there were no individual classroom capability issues. The staff were all dismissed because their students failed to reach expected attainment levels.

The union says the students' failures may be a result of a litany of poor management practices by the college, which include:

• refusal to pay for specialist cover (in spite of a huge surplus) for long-term sickness
• lecturers expected to teach two different classes in two different rooms at the same time
• groups being pushed together even though they are supposed to be studying different material
• non-specialist staff regularly covering maths sessions
• failure to provide teaching for students in the run-up to exams.

Relations between the college and the union deteriorated even further this week when two members of UCU staff, who were visiting to assist running a legal strike action ballot, were frogmarched off the college site by security.

UCU head of further education, Barry Lovejoy, said: 'As every teacher knows, student attainment is affected by many factors besides teaching, such as prior educational experience, home background, the ability and motivation of the students, and the general educational environment and support provided by the college.

'At a time when colleges and universities are piling on the pressure, through increased workloads and performance management, the arbitrary and improper dismissal of teaching staff for the underachievement of students sets a worrying precedent.

'Halesowen College seems determined to pick fights with us at every turn. While it sacks union members and threatens others, its standing within educational circuits continues to plummet. It is difficult not to see this as an attack on trade union members, rather than anything that resembles fairness.'