Bureaucracy cuts into classroom time

Heavier administrative workloads in colleges are damaging the student experience, research by the Further Education Development Agency has found.

More than 90 per cent of colleges reported a big rise in bureaucracy in the past five years, affecting all grades of teaching and support staff.

Lecturers spend up to two-and-a-half hours a week in meetings and do about 30 "administrative tasks" a week, yet hours have not increased in proportion. This was cutting in to time available to prepare for classes, the report said.