Lecturers in Northern Ireland’s further education colleges have voted overwhelmingly for new contracts of employment setting a 36-hour maximum week and management guarantees against excessive teaching loads.
The deal affecting 2,000 lecturers was this week accepted by three to one in a ballot of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education. The deal gives lecturers a lump sum of Pounds 1,000 and the 2.7 per cent denied to them last year during the dispute over contracts.
The union on the mainland has yet to make a national breakthrough. While the recent NATFHE survey showed one-third of colleges had struck local deals, it has not agreed a national pay claim with employers since 1993.
