Colleges are suffering a brain drain of talent as the best managers and lecturers quit the sector over the intolerable burden of bureaucracy, the FE Focus survey reveals.
The loss of staff and management disillusioned with paperwork is compounding a recruitment crisis caused by the 12 per cent gap between FE lecturers and schoolteachers’ pay.
Sixty-six colleges responded to the survey, 55 per cent of the 120 targeted. Three-quarters (76 per cent) of college principals and managers say the level of bureaucracy is damaging staff recruitment and retention. In 2001 colleges haemorrhaged an average of 6.5 managers or lecturers.
Principals are also concerned about the impact it is having on relations between FE teachers and senior management.
The survey confirms the concerns of many principals that the Government’s Teachers’ Pay Initiative is failing to stem the flow of expertise from the FE sector - in a week when lecturer and support staff unions took strike action over pay.
Worse, a third (32 per cent) of colleges saw the performance pay scheme as among their top three offenders in a bureaucracy hate list.
Recent research by the Association of Colleges discovered that teaching vacancy rates in FE colleges were double that in schools, with more than 3,239 unfilled jobs in September 2002, up 25 per cent on the previous year. The findings confirmed FE Focus evidence that the shortage of lecturers in key areas was deepening.
“For the first time in my career I have had young, capable, energetic staff leaving because of the pressure generated by the paperwork they have to complete,” said George Bright, principal of Wiltshire College in Chippenham. “They love working with our students but they need to have a life beyond the paper. The rewards are not good enough.”
Another principal commented: “We are in direct competition with schools in the recruitment of high-quality staff. The perceived levels of bureaucracy in FE are a deterrent to many of these candidates.”
Principals estimate that lecturers spend an average of four hours a week dealing with unnecessary bureaucracy.
John Hogg, principal of Middlesbrough College, said 90 per cent of lecturers who had left in the last year cited bureaucracy as a significant factor in their decision to quit.
“I genuinely worry that the increasing burden of administration causes managers, myself included, to struggle to remember our true objective.
“It has also driven a wedge between teachers and managementbusiness support staff,” he said.
“Governors also find themselves faced with a deluge of more and more demands and responsibilities, which challenge their sense of public duty.”
