Natfhe rattles sabres

Strikes against proposals to increase further education teaching hours could hit colleges early next year and undermine the government's lifelong learning plans, the country's biggest lecturing union has warned.

Lecturers' union Natfhe said that members in the further education sector may strike unless college employers reconsider proposals to fix a 22- to -hour lecturing week. Natfhe's further education members rejected the Association of Colleges' proposal by 56 per cent to 43 per cent and 99 per cent of those who voted in last week's ballot said they would support industrial action.

A Natfhe spokeswoman stressed that the first step would be to hold further discussions with the AoC. But she added: "What we will do is to start to prepare. We would have to have a strike ballot. The earliest it could take place is in the new year."

The looming dispute centres on the AoC's proposals for a national framework on working conditions. The association has proposed that college lecturers spend between 22 and hours a week in contact with students. In the most recent Natfhe survey average annual teaching contact hours totalled 826, around 23 hours a week. Total weekly hours were typically 35 to 37. Natfhe members fear that employers would seek to increase contact time to the -hour upper limit, which the union says is an unacceptable burden.

"Lecturers are saying that they cannot deliver the quality of education the government wants, never mind cope with the student expansion proposed by the government," she said.

"And if the government is concerned with the numbers of students dropping out then we must give lecturers reasonable working limits so that they can give these students the support they need."

Marcia Roberts, the AoC's director of professional services, said: "We are certainly aiming for a compromise but it is unlikely that we will move from the 22 to hours as this already represents a compromise on our behalf from an original position of 22 to 29 hours a week."

Ms Roberts said that she thought it unlikely that Natfhe could sustain a campaign of industrial action. Only a third of eligible Natfhe members voted in the ballot on the national framework for conditions.

Natfhe is due to meet the AoC on Tuesday.