GOVERNMENT AND HIGHER EDUCATION LECTURERS' DISPUTE

EDM number 84 in 1990-91, proposed by Paul Murphy on 16/11/1990.

That this House condemns the Department of Education and Science's intervention in pay and conditions negotiations between the Polytechnics and Colleges Employers' Forum and the teaching associations representing academic staff in higher education corporations; deplores the situation that, despite statistical information supplied by Her Majesty's Inspectorate showing a 50 per cent. increase in student numbers over the past decade in the sector with no corresponding rise in the number of teachers, the Department of Education and Science insists that cuts be made in the funding of institutions unless they increase non-negotiated contracts of employment on new and promoted teachers and modify the contracts of all serving teachers without agreement, coupled with a further rise in productivity; and calls for retention of national collective bargaining to achieve an outcome which recognises the work of teaching staff and arrests the decline in morale.

This motion has been signed by a total of 34 MPs.