A PENDLE father and union rep today backed a strike by lecturers at a local college and said: "Something has to be done".

Jim Howarth, who lives in Nelson, is branch secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in Lancashire.

Members of the union who work in further education voted to join a number of other lecturers in other unions to take industrial action today on the issue of pay.

Mr Howarth, whose daughter attended Nelson and Colne College where lecturers were manning the picket line, said: "I have more reason than most to be grateful for the excellent work carried out by the staff.

"She achieved grades in A Level high enough to secure a place at Sheffield University where she is reading law and I fully expect my younger daughter to attend the college in due course.

"That such highly-qualified and important education sector workers have been allowed to fall behind their schoolteacher colleagues with regard to pay, is an inequality which the Government cannot afford to ignore for much longer if it is serious about retention of high quality staff."

Staff at Blackburn College were also out on strike today.

Gerald Imison, deputy general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, agreed: "There has been so little investment in further education over the last ten years that lecturers rightly feel underpaid and therefore undervalued.

"ATL demands that the government takes notice of the looming crisis where even traditionally moderate lecturers are voting to strike".

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers is an independent, registered trade union and professional association, representing approximately 160,000 teachers, lecturers and support staff in maintained and independent schools, sixth form, tertiary and further education colleges in the United Kingdom.

It is affiliated to the Trades Union Congress.