Principal concerns

Some months ago, you answered a question about principals’ salaries in a trivial way. This is a serious question: there is a feeling here that because our principal, whom we respect, is slipping down the salary league tables, the college’s reputation will decline, too. Is there a link?

There is nothing trivial about principals’ salaries. Nor is there any known connection between the size of the boss’s cheque and the standing of the college. If you look at those league tables, you can see examples of notable dossers in charge of colleges with inflated reputations being paid vast amounts of public money, as well as worthy souls managing brilliant colleges being paid less per year than some footballers get every week - with no chance of sponsored cars, ghosted biographies or lucrative celebrity appearances either.

Classes in cuddles

In a spell of hot weather I received a lot of complaints from people whose houses overlook the college grounds. They were upset that scantily dressed students were lying on the grass, not only not working but flagrantly “canoodling”, “snogging”, and “cuddling”. I was told that these students were wasting public money, setting a bad example to schoolchildren and distracting good citizens from carrying on with their lives. What was I going to do about it?

What they failed to see was that students were developing high-level interpersonal skills; improving their first aid by practising the kiss of life; and consoling each other after sitting a tough AVCE paper. You and your neighbours should be proud of your students for not letting a bit of sunshine put them off their studies.

Docking tale

After the last one-day strike, which was well supported in this college, I was approached by the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education branch secretary asking me, as principal, not to deduct pay from strikers. Not only was I known to sympathise with the teachers’ case that their pay was too low, but it was alleged that unnamed other colleges had decided not to dock pay. How should I have responded?

A burst of hysterical laughter usually does the trick, followed by an invitation to “get real”. Of course, lecturers’ salaries are too low to enable us to attract and keep good ones. But striking in the middle of student examinations and an election campaign is not the most sensible way to put things right. Levering one college into doing something daft on the basis that others have already lost their corporate marbles is also a standard NATFHE device. This time, I believe it is right: some colleges really have not docked pay. The auditors will be interested in why these colleges have spent public money on a service which managers know they have not received.

Governors-keepers

Do you have any ideas about how to find new governors? We have always had problems, not just in persuading people to come forward, but in getting them to stay for more than a few months. The search committee is getting desperate.

Yes, governors can be like students: hard to get and hard to keep. The same basic rules apply. Are you advertising in the right places and emphasising that yours is the best college there has ever been? Are you using the right contacts in the community? Are you inducting new governors so that they understand what they are in for? Are you supporting them properly? Do they feel cherished - or put upon? Presumably, you run student satisfaction questionnaires - do you do the same for governors ? If you manage to get some good governors with stickability, bottle the formula: you would make a mint from the many colleges with the same problems.

Sauce of complaint

I am the new director of enterprise at this sixth-form college, and I have been asked to advise on setting up courses in catering. I know about facilities and the sort of staff we need to recruit, but I am worried about our liability if a customer in our planned restaurant develops food poisoning.

Can you help me?

Your kitchens will be subject to exactly the same requirements as a commercial restaurant as far as health and hygiene are concerned. Your risks are more likely to come from mistakes made by inexperienced students: one of our student waiters inadvertently invented a new dish to complement chicken in a basket, when, trembling with nervousness, he created soup in a handbag. A disclaimer notice, prominently displayed, may help.

Divided loyalties

My job is to advise young people about courses. They all want to enrol for a course that I know is badly taught and from which employment is rarely available. My personal conscience says I should warn them off, my college conscience says I should be more loyal to colleagues and enrol all comers. What do you think?

I think you should get your brain in gear. Your clients are the students, not the under-performing staff. If I were you, I’d take the manager responsible for the duff provision to one side and let him or her know that the game is up. Say that until the courses are sorted, you will deter people from signing up. Don’t be squeamish about it: if students are unhappy with their course, they will remember that you advised them and not spare you blame. And quite right, too.

This is the last Dilemmas by Michael Austin, who retired as principal of Accrington and Rossendale College this summer. The role of agony uncle will be taken over by Don Short, the writer of Diary of an Online Learner