Why we won't work for peanuts

As further education lecturers and support staff strike over low pay, Grace McCann talks to teachers about their grievances and finds that their dissatisfaction has reached crisis point

Liz Paige is a lecturer struggling to cope with low pay. She has an overdraft, various loans and, at the moment, a stinking cold. "I'm very run down and stressed," she says. "This is the second time I've been ill this term – I think it's down to the pressures of work." Ms Paige is 40 and earning £17,000 a year teaching English full-time to speakers of other languages (Esol) at City College, Birmingham. Despite her money and health worries, she enjoys the work. "I love my job. I work with asylum-seekers, which is demanding but rewarding."

People in further education (FE) are intensely committed to what they do, but have to put up with appalling pay and conditions, according to Mick Barr, City's programme leader for business courses. He also chairs the FE committee of the lecturers' union, Natfhe. "At the moment we have classes going on in temporary offices. There's a 'mend and make do' culture," he says.

This year, staff dissatisfaction has reached crisis point. Lecturers and support staff staged a national strike over pay on 5 November. They are angry that their employers, the Association of Colleges (AoC), offered them a pay increase of only 2.3 per cent, which compares badly with offers of at least 3.5 per cent to school and university teachers. FE lecturers on average already earn £3,000 a year less than teachers.

On Tuesday last week, a further half-day strike was called in the Midlands to coincide with the AoC's annual conference, where the Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, outlined new plans for funding. More than 200 college staff stood in freezing weather handing out leaflets outside the International Convention Centre in Birmingham. Some, including one dressed as a gorilla, doled out symbolic packets of peanuts. The strikers hoped to lobby Mr Clarke, and looked out for the silver Mercedes he was supposedly being driven in, but he found another way into the building.

Inside, the Education Secretary admitted that "for too long [FE] has been the forgotten service of education," and announced extra funding to the tune of £1.2bn in three years' time. Natfhe and the support staff's union, Unison, have since suspended their plans for further strike action in December, in the expectation that the AoC will re-enter pay talks.

For Liz Paige, the chance of improved pay may have come too late. "I buy the education newspapers every week to look for school teachers' posts. It's sad because I don't want to," she says. She is a single parent, with two children aged nine and 13, and is tired of her seemingly endless financial problems. "I can't afford things that other professionals take for granted. I've got a really ropey old car, and it would be nice to have a new coat this year, and a holiday."

She is angry that her experience and dedication doesn't appear to be valued. "I have a teaching degree and four years' primary experience. I'm in at 8.30am every day, often stay until 6pm, and must teach one evening class a week, until 8.30pm. Then I have to do a lot of work at home, such as making teaching materials." Having taught in schools, she finds the pay and conditions in FE bleak by comparison. "Ex-school colleagues are on at least £10,000 more than me, and I don't think they work any harder. I know a teacher who started on £22,000."

Ian Austin, an IT teacher at City, says he doesn't begrudge teachers their extra money. "But it lets me know that our management and the Government don't respect us," he sighs. Mr Austin has taught in FE for 17 years, and earns about £26,000 a year. "That's including teachers' pay initiative money; I'm not sure what I'd earn without TPI."

According to Mick Barr, FE pay structures are a confusing mess. "Last year's teachers' pay initiative was launched with glossy leaflets, but it's a let-down," he says. "It's a one-off, doesn't affect pensions, and uptake hasn't been consistent across the colleges." The unions want a national pay structure. "There hasn't been one since incorporation [when management powers were handed from local education authorities to the colleges] in 1993," says Barr.

Ian Austin's pay slips confirm this. "In 1993 my pay dropped in real value, and I've effectively been paid at the same rate since then," he says. The low pay appears to have hit IT particularly hard. "Senior management here have told inspectors that we cannot get people to teach IT at this level for the money being offered," says Mr Austin. "I'm 53 and my children have left home. I shan't stay much longer."

The employers' statistics paint a grim picture. Lecturing vacancies were up 25 per cent this year at 3,239. So how are departments functioning? "In IT we've been casualised to a large degree," says Mr Austin. "Most teaching hours are delivered by lecturers who are good, but they are temporary workers. This means that problems with students – such as poor attendance – take priority, and administration doesn't get done. We don't look after students like we used to." There are also fewer support staff to ease the strain. "They've been taken away. Theoretically I should have access to technical support but in reality I don't. Software problems can take months to sort out."

Mr Austin, a Natfhe representative, worries about the college's support staff. "However badly lecturers are being treated, support staff fare worse," he says. According to Unison, two-thirds of support staff earn less than £13,000 a year. AoC figures show that vacancies were up a staggering 44 per cent this year, at 4,913. Hanna Miles, one of City's administrators, describes the pay as appalling. "I've considered taking a part-time cleaning job," she says.

The staff shortages inevitably add to the pressure. "I enjoy the work but there is too much of it. I feel I am doing two jobs," says Ms Miles. She's hoping that the new cash from Charles Clarke will make a difference.

g.mccann@independent.co.uk