News:
TECHNICIANS UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
10th May 2011
Dear Colleagues,
A recent paper by Dr Paul Lewis Kings College London entitled TECHNICIANS UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: A STUDY OF THE SKILLS AND TRAINING will provide interesting reading to many of our technician members working in Universities. Dr Lewis's paper concurs with a much of the material Unite has been saying over recent years on problems for HEI's on Technician recruitment and retention in coming years. The report also highlights the direct experiences of Unite technician members of low training numbers or difficulty in off the job training and release.
The full report can be found here
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/management/people/academic/lewisgatsbyreport.pdf (PDF 799KB)or locally
techsundermicoscope.pdf (PDF 799KB)The report also covers the lack of a formal professional body covering university technicians. It covers difficulties experienced by technicians who reach the top of their grades with little "headroom" to progress on up the scales. In fact much of the material covered in the report could have been taken from briefings and comments from many Unite representatives on the lack of understanding in many universities at senior levels of the demographic time bomb ticking away in UK Universities where technical skills are not appreciated.
Yours sincerely
Mike Robinson
National Officer
Higher Education