The effects of funding cutbacks in further education were borne home this week with the announcement of seven redundancies among lecturers at Borders College.
The job losses, which will save pound;140,000 a year, are described as “essential”.
Four lecturers are being made compulsorily redundant and three are opting for voluntary severance or early retirement. The losses are divided between the Galashiels and Hawick campuses of the college.
The need for cuts, which have been carried out following consultation with the unions, was made known last month when the college warned that the pattern of course provision and fluctuations in student numbers, made it inevitable that posts would go among the 95 lecturers.
Bob Murray, depute principal, claimed that this “painful but essential aspect of management” had been approached in a fair and just way. The selection of staff had followed strict and objective criteria of assessment.
