I AM responding to the comments of the "fiery principal" of Wigan and Leigh College in The Journal (May 2). I am moved to write because it has been put to me that I might be the anonymous correspondent who seems to have provoked her outburst.

I should clarify my connection. I am an ex-senior lecturer of Leigh College and latterly of Wigan and Leigh College. I have helped Margaret Murdin to save £1.8 million per year by volunteering to retire early last December. I confess that I was motivated more by my personal well-being rather than a desire to help to provide a cheap Further Education service.

Not wishing to be accused of 'reacting sourly' I must add that

(1) the financial terms of my severance mean that my income up to compulsory retirement age is now very little different than if I had remained employed

(2) I had become disillusioned with the FE system.

I have some sympathy with the anonymous antagonist of the "fiery principal". A mere four years ago there was a major re-organisation of the management structure at the college. The excuse then was the absorption of the Leigh College. That "re-organisation" principally involved giving new titles to old jobs. For example, a personnel officer became a Director of Human Resources, and so on. Grand sounding titles which justified huge salary increases.

The more recent management reshuffle was under active discussion before I retired. My perception of the exercise was as follows:

As many as possible of the highly paid, (and highly competent in most cases), senior lecturers were to be persuaded to retire;

Senior lecturers who did not retire but could justify some title as, say, "Quality Co-ordinator", would slide onto the management spine;

The remaining teaching staff would then have the title of "Lecturer".

Furthermore, as many as possible teaching positions were to be filled by part-time lecturers. I would think that all the co-ordinators Margaret cares to appoint will have a greater difficulty in co-ordinating nomadic tribes of part-time lecturers, than organising dedicated, full-time staff.

This type of restructuring has been going on in an ad-hoc fashion for the last three years or so. We had departmental co-ordinators being co-ordinated by cross-college co-ordinators. In spite of all these co-ordinators, we seemed to be stumbling on in an increasingly un-coordinated way.

Margaret stated that "...writing anonymous letters is the coward's way out..." While not condoning this approach my sympathy lies with anon. in these situations. It must be remembered that the "fiery principal", and others, do have some influence on the professional well-being of this person. I also recognise the frustration felt by people of integrity who see the continuing decline in education, but are unable to save it.

In my opinion the statement "Because we are such a good college we have more students than ever..." is logically defective. More students are going to colleges because of politico-economic pressure on people.

Finally, may I add a note of sympathy for the principal. She states that "...our redundancy and restructuring package has saved £1.8 million per year..." Therein lies the hidden agenda imposed, I believe, from above. That is colleges throughout the country must aim for cheapness rather than quality.

Now that I have got that off my chest I will gently fade back into my leisurely pursuits.

Roy Brooks (retired),

Wyre Drive,

Worsley.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.