College lecturers in three days of strikes over pay

Hundreds of teaching staff at three colleges in Norfolk are striking for three days in a dispute over pay and conditions.

Lecturers and learning support staff at City College Norwich, which also runs Paston College in North Walsham and Easton College, near the city, are to walk out for a second half-day on Thursday morning in a bid to secure a 10% pay rise.

University and College Union (UCU) representative David Hunter said better pay would help stem the "crisis" in recruitment and retention of staff in further education.

City College Norwich, which has given a 2% pay award, said it was operating within a budget deficit, and 10% was "simply unaffordable".

Collectively, the colleges have about 500 teaching staff, about 6,200 students aged 16-18, about 1,100 adult learners and 1,000 apprentices.

"Staff at our college, and at colleges across the country, are facing a pay cut in real terms because pay is not keeping up with inflation, and hasn't for many years," said Hunter, an inclusive learning lecturer at City College.

"We cannot keep teachers and we cannot recruit teachers when they would all get paid better elsewhere.

"Better pay means better teachers and keeping our teachers, and that's better for our students."

He said the higher earning potential in secondary schools – where pay is set by the government – had an impact on recruiting and holding on to college teachers, particularly in English and maths.

"We have a real difficulty, and that leads to cancelling classes, covered classes, lecturers being unavailable," he added.

City College said it had put plans in place to keep all three sites open this week, although its inclusive learning provision, some specialist courses and some adult courses would be affected by a lack of staffing.

All scheduled assessments and exams were to go ahead as planned, it added.

"We share the union's desire to see the pay gap closed between further education teachers and their counterparts in schools," a spokesperson said, explaining that action was required at government level.

It said it would review its pay position in April, when any additional student funding would be announced, and had listened to concerns about workloads.

"We have placed creating manageable workloads, supporting staff wellbeing and reducing sickness at the heart of our transformation process, which commenced earlier this year.

"We are focused on working smarter, not harder, as we embrace new technologies and new ways of teaching and learning."

The UCU, which has more than 300 members across the three colleges, is taking strike action at 24 other colleges across England which have not settled pay disputes.

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