Storm in a teacup

Published on 20/11/2012 00:00

A word of support for education secretary Mike Russell. It was under Scottish Labour, from the 1990s onwards, that further and higher education became managerialist utopias.

So much so that a cull of managers in the sectors is urgently required. Their astronomical 
salaries and pension entitlements also need looking at.

Rather than feeling sympathy for the principal of Stow College, who resigned of his own free will, we should remember that he and his kind have done
inordinately well over the years, at the taxpayer’s expense.

We should keep asking how many individuals in further and higher education management teams earn more than £80,000 per annum. Perhaps the money squandered by Scottish Labour on a golden age of management would have been much better invested in teaching staff and in students.

Bloated management in further and higher education is very costly, and should be of great concern to the public. In the circumstances, the storm in a teacup over the principal of Stow College is an irritating 
distraction.

Alastair Mcleish

Ashley Drive

Edinburgh