Ron Davies, Plaid Cymru’s Assembly Candidate for Caerphilly, has called for the pay of further education college principals in Wales to be frozen after it was revealed they earn up to £152,000 a year.
Salaries range from £71,000 to £152,000 a year, with the principal of Ystrad Mynach College receiving almost £125,000 a year. It has 600 staff and almost 8,000 full and part-time students.
Coleg Gwent, which has a campus at Crosskeys, has a principal on £145,880 and has 16 staff members earning more than £50,000. It has 1,500 staff and 36,000 students.
Figures from the Statistics Office show, for example, that 60% of workers in the Caerphilly constituency earn £21,678 gross or less a year while 40% pick up £16,604 a year or less.
The salary figures of principles have been obtained by Plaid using the Freedom of Information Act.
Mr Davies, who is also a councillor on Caerphilly County Borough Council, said the figures showed that pay levels did not necessarily relate to the number of students or staff numbers.
He said: “In these difficult economic times, it is only right that we are fully aware of where public money is being spent. The high number of high earners within the education sector does raise questions about whether scarce public funds are being spent in our classrooms and lecture halls. It also raises questions about the accountability of our further education colleges.
“The current situation must be looked at. We cannot contemplate a situation as a society where those at the bottom make greater sacrifices than those at the top.”
i may be wrong here but last time i looked College's are privite componys. as such a govening bodys of any kind have no right to say what a persion should ern doing the job beond minnimum wage laws. prehaps ron was to busy looking whitch party he was going to join next to check this point.