COMMITTED Wigan and Leigh College lecturers have offered to forego any pay rise for the next academic year in a bid to save jobs.

The proposal has been forced to stave off a financial crisis with inevitable redundancies due they say to a £2m shortfall blamed on the strategies of a previous regime and inconsistencies in government funding.

As a result lecturers were faced with a new contract which would have increased working hours, reduced holidays and terms of redundancy.

The Wigan and Leigh College branch of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education resolutely vowed they would not volunteer any further sacrifice of contract terms.

A union source said: "Tony Blair came to power on a promise of education, education and education. All we have had is cuts, cuts and more cuts."

"We are sick of the increasing demands on our already precious time with students. We are already hard -stretched teaching more students, more classes, ever changing curriculum demands and endless form filling.

Sickness rates through stress and stress-related illnesses have gone through the roof and our morale is ebbing fast.

Branch chair, Mike Lambourne, said: "At a time when we in the further education sector are severely lagging behind the pay of secondary teachers, it is truly bizarre that we end up having to temporarily sacrifice a pay rise just to remain employed and maintain an educational service let alone demand more pay."