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G. R. Berridge (Letters, March 19) exemplifies woolly thinking over lecturers and pay. The basic relationship between institution, staff and students is economic. No one offers their academic or other services free of charge.

The only issue is how much the institution can cut my pay before I stop offering the full service. Institutions withdraw our services from students if they fail to pay their bills. I know of no member of staff who has insisted on teaching or examining a student when the institution has required the student to withdraw. Institutions, not lecturers, "owe" a service to students. If a student is not being assessed, they should refer the matter to the institution.

For more than 15 years, vice-chancellors have bent to every whim of the government as regards the quality and volume of service provided. But, the increased workload has had to be absorbed by their staff while they have robbed the salary budget to maintain increasingly basic infrastructures.

Vice-chancellor's pay has remained reasonable while their staff's has declined almost 40 per cent in ten years.

Andrew Morgan
Swansea