 The college said the curriculum is not under threat |
At least 100 jobs are to go at a Tyneside college. South Tyneside College, which has debts of more than �6m, said it was starting a period of consultation over redundancy plans.
Representatives from the lecturers' union Natfhe met college managers on Wednesday to discuss ways to avoid compulsory redundancies.
The college is carrying out a review of its curriculum before making any decisions about staff numbers.
College principal Pauline Piddington announced the start of a 90-day consultation period for the redundancies.
Last resort
She said: "The 90-day notice period is a legal requirement for any plan to make more than 100 redundancies.
"Until the curriculum review is complete we do not know what the exact number will be.
"We shall naturally try to keep the level of redundancies as low as possible."
The first stage of the process will be to ask staff to come forward who want to be considered for voluntary redundancy.
Union representatives met college managers on Wednesday to discuss the issues.
Iain Owens, from lecturers' union Natfhe, said: "We have made clear all the way through this process that we are prepared to co-operate with college management up until the point at which they start to make our members compulsorily redundant
"Then, as you would expect, we will be completely opposing compulsory redundancies."
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