Our colleges are on strike and are a glaring testament to the SNP government’s shameful neglect of further education.

Lecturers, the backbone of our educational institutions, have been forced onto the picket lines in an ongoing battle for fair pay and better working conditions. This crisis, rooted in financial mismanagement and austerity-driven policies, demands urgent government intervention.

The Educational Institute of Scotland Further Education Lecturers’ Association (EIS-FELA) has been leading these strikes since February, driven by inadequate pay offers and severe cuts to college funding.

The offer on the table – a meagre £5000 pay rise over three years – fails to match the pay uplifts seen in other public sectors such as the NHS and school teachers.

This is an insult to our lecturers, who deserve equitable treatment and respect.

Beyond the paltry pay rise, the crisis deepens with the drastic cuts to educational provisions. City of Glasgow College, like many others, faces an unsustainable financial landscape marked by real-terms budget cuts, rising operational costs, and an overall deficit of £6 million. These cuts have resulted in increased workloads, reduced face-to-face teaching time, and alarming rounds of redundancies.

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