COLLEGE lecturers condemned the “astronomic” wages of their bosses today, pledging to start a campaign to limit them.

Further education members of the UCU meeting at the union’s  annual conference in Manchester voted to call on the government, councils and education boards to limit principals’ pay to no more than five times the pay of their average college employee.

Seventeen colleges paid more than £200,000 in principals’ salaries in 2016-17.

This was a significant rise on the 12 colleges who paid a similar rate in 2015-16, and the eight colleges in 2014-15.

The motion, which was passed unanimously, pointed out that the pay of principals had shot up at a “faster rate than lecturers’ pay,” and called on all union members to begin a campaign of opposition to ensure that principals’ pay rises are halted.

Chris Jones, a delegate from Neath Port Talbot College, condemned schools “justifying extra pay” by claiming they have more responsibility, despite the fact that vice-principals and school heads have been recruited over the years to deal with work.

All morning, lecturers queued up to criticise the “broken” pay system in British education, addressing the wide disparities in sixth form education.

A delegate from Croydon College said that now was the time for the union to “come out of guerilla struggle and into trench warfare,” telling delegates that “we can win this.”