Teachers’ earnings are catching up with those of colleagues in the traditionally better-paid further education sector. In the past five years the differential in average pay has halved. Lecturers also argue that changes in their sector, which have led to less job security, are making school teaching a more attractive option.

Once upon a time in the land of education, university lecturers were kings, enjoying good wages and superior conditions. Lower down the table, lecturers in further and higher education colleges looked down in turn on secondary teacher serfs. Primary teachers were well below the salt. But recent changes have blown the old order topsy-turvy.

FE lecturers earn on average Pounds 21,000, slightly more than teachers (average Pounds 20,000), but argue that their conditions are worse. The model Colleges’ Employers’ Forum contract gives them 17 fewer days off than teachers, although in practice most lecturers have gone from having more holidays than teachers to about the same. The lecturers’ pay spine does extend Pounds 3,000 further than the schoolteachers’ spine, but 20 per cent of lecturers - those who have not signed the new contracts - are into their third year of a pay freeze.

John Bolton, principal of Blackburn FE college, says new pressures on colleges, for example national targets and the hold-back mechanism on funds, are taking their toll. Incorporation and the commercial imperative are making lecturers feel insecure about their jobs and their future. The battle against the introduction of the CEF contracts has been bitter and divisive.

The cuts in the Chancellor’s Budget also confirm FE as the Cinderella sector with no chance of a visit from a fairy godmother.

Teachers argue that times have been tough for them, too. A joint union submission to the School Teachers’ Review Body on pay points out that teachers’ pay increases have been below the average increases in the economy, that the starting pay for graduates compares unfavourably with the private sector and that most teachers hit a mid-career pay ceiling.

This view is supported by the New Earnings Survey (see table), which shows that since 1992 teachers have seen an erosion in their earnings, compared with the rest of the economy. “Over a three-year period of public sector pay policy restraint, teachers’ pay was held well below the rest of the economy,” said Chris Trinder, chief economist of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. One explanation is that older, better-paid teachers are retiring early and are being replaced by younger, cheaper ones, pushing down the average wage. In the early 1990s, however, teachers did rather better as awards recognised shortfalls in the 1980s.

These figures are challenged by Mike Walker, assistant employers’ secretary of the Local Government Management Board. He says teachers have fared relatively well compared with administrative and clerical grades in education and in other local government services.

And the predominantly female workforce fares well when compared with women’s earnings in other sectors. Most teachers earn Pounds 22,500 (including points for extra responsibilities).

This position is supported by Bev Curtis of the consultancy Education Personnel Management. He produces figures showing inflation increasing by 67.8 per cent over 10 years and teachers’ pay increasing by 105.2 per cent, compared with a 101.6 per cent increase for police and 77.6 per cent for clerical and administrative grades.

University lecturers, who earn on average Pounds 24,700, have just kept pace with the retail price index over the past five years. But according to Conor Cradden, the Association of University Teachers’ senior researcher: “We’re going nowhere. Standards of living have not improved and over the past five years productivity, due to increased student numbers, has increased by 30 per cent.”

He said the New Earnings Survey gives a false picture because the random sample does not reflect the earnings profiles within each sector. In universities most staff have been promoted to the top of the scale and are not getting incremental increases. Lecturers in this position - half the profession - are earning Pounds 26,000. This earnings “ghetto” is far too low when experience and calibre are considered, said David Triesman, the AUT’s general secretary.

Trying to assess the relative fortunes of staff in different parts of the system is not easy. The unions tell competing tales of woe. There are also political axes to grind.

The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers says teachers have not done too badly compared with others in terms of pay and believes the real issues are workload and large classes. But then the NASUWT supports having a pay review body, while the National Union of Teachers wants it scrapped.

Statistics are increasingly difficult to come by. The fragmentation of the FE sector, the new status of polytechnics, competition with the university sector and new pay structures add to the confusion.

Reference to pay spines can also be misleading, for example in the case of teachers with additional awards for extra responsibilities or, more rarely, excellence. Heads and deputies are now negotiating their own rises with varying degrees of success.In London and the South-east, three-quarters of heads secured rises above their recommended spine point; in the North only a third did so. Overall, 66 per cent have had pay rises.

Some lecturers on the new management spine are earning more, but are having to work much harder than on their old lecturer grade. And some principals are said to be doing very nicely