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This is in response Michael Farley's letter: "Your absence from the College" sent to staff last week.


Dear Michael,

I am sorry you are disappointed at me for having chosen not to attend work but I feel I had no other option than doing this to be listened to.

I am not going to make a speech (there have been already many) but with all my respects, I would like to tell you a few things:

1. The UCU has NOT asked students not to enrol, we would never manipulate students.

2. I strongly believe that the strike has not had any major impact on recruitment, as we have not turned anyone away. This is an issue that the College should address (it should have been addressed some years ago) as this decrease has been happening for a few years now.

3. You said in your letter: "It saddens me that your decision not to come to work has had a direct effect on those that Tower Hamlets College is there to educate".

It saddens me even more that you, as the Principal, and the SMT of this College have not fought enough before giving up and taking the decision of cutting courses.

You said that "the difficult decisions that we have arrived at are necessary ... and we need to get on with this academic year".

You cannot possibly imagine how much we desire to solve this situation and come back to work but we cannot possibly do it under these conditions.

I totally disagree with you when you said that the decisions you took are necessary, necessary for what? or for who? We are asking for less than 1% of the budget to keep courses running and give an opportunity to everyone who wants to study.

These cuts and these decisions are affecting specially the most vulnerable people in the community (mainly adults but also teenagers who were not successful at school and come without qualifications, specially those with 18 or 19 years old), the people who need this opportunity the most.

A big part of a College is about second chances and we have been long proud of having students coming to vocational courses (who probably would not be accepted somewhere else) without confidence in themselves at all and see them growing and passing from Vocational Options to Level 1, Level 2, A levels or diplomas and even going to university.

It is a powerful feeling to see students recovering their confidence and believing that they can achieve whatever they want. It does such an impact on their lives that we are devastated with the possibility of leaving them out.

If there have been only one student who benefited from using our (College) money, it would be well used, it would be worth it. I am sad to see that you do not think the same.

You also talked about the concessions that have been made by management. It is deeply sad that these concessions were made after all our protests and we would not have achieved them (the students would not have them) without "our fights" when it is been proven to be possible. I also would not call them ‘concessions’; they should be 'rights'.

I am going to finish by saying that I would stand by a principal who believes that education is the base of society, a principal who, during difficult times, when the government is making cuts to public services, specially to education, uses all his power and influences to fight against it,  a principal who puts education the first, who understands that every child matters and who will do whatever he has to do to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to study and be educated.

We all hope to hear from you soon and solve the situation for the benefit of our students and the College.

Thank you for taking the time and the trouble to read this in this busy time.

Kind regards

A Tower Hamlets College Lecturer