Lecturers strike over low-paid 'assistants'

n Sheffield College lecturers have gone on strike just a week after the troubled college became the first to be taken over by funding council troubleshooters. Lecturers' union Natfhe was due to shut the college down yesterday in protest at plans to replace lecturers with lower-paid, less-qualified "learner assistants".

Principal Ken Ruddiman retired last week as the Further Education Funding Council announced that it had set up a special review of the college.

Terry Melia, chair of the Further Education Development Agency, will lead the review, which is expected to develop a financial recovery plan for Sheffield, the country's second largest college, with 45,000 students and 1,800 staff.

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