COLLEGE staff are leaving further education in droves as workloads mount and pay increases lag behind schoolteachers, lecturers said yesterday.

The stark picture was painted as hundreds of lecturers across the region demonstrated in a one-day strike over pay and conditions.

Thousands of classes were disrupted as staff demanded action to bridge the ten per cent gap between their salaries and those of teachers.

Richard Armstrong, a lecturer at Darlington College of Technology, said colleges had become the "Cinderella of education".

He said that while student numbers were increasing, it was getting harder to retain lecturers, many of whom earned £20,000.

"We feel that our salaries have been eroded, teaching hours increased and the number of holidays gradually reduced," said Mr Armstrong, a programme manager in the school of engineering.

The strike was called by lecturers' union, Natfhe, demanding a flat-rate increase of £3,000 as the first stage to close the gap between teachers' and lecturers' pay.

Darlington College of Technology said Natfhe's claims were not affordable within their funding arrangements, but were looking at Government funding initiatives.

A spokesman said yesterday's action caused "minimal disrupt-ion" to services provided to students.

Natfhe said action had also taken place at City of Sunderland College, Bishop Auckland College, Cleveland College of Art and Design, Gateshead College, North-umberland College, Redcar and Cleveland College, Teesside Tertiary College, York College and Yorkshire Coast College in Scarborough.

Joanna Tait, principal of Bishop Auckland College, said that while the Government had started to address the disparity between college staff and teachers' pay, there was still a "long way to go".