As Scotland's 12 colleges of nursing and midwifery this week join the ÖйúAƬ sector, nursing teachers are in danger of becoming second-class citizens, the union Unison has warned.

Six universities and a further education college have won the first five-year contracts for pre-registration nursing and midwifery courses, which until now have been offered through colleges run by the health boards. Nurse education is still being funded from the Scottish Office health programme, under contracts between the tertiary institutions and the National Health Service.

But Unison fears that the nursing staff will have poorer terms and conditions than their academic colleagues, as well as reduced class contact time. It also says there are rumours that hard pressed health boards will have to squeeze funds from NHS trusts to pay additional funding for the colleges' transfer.

The union said nurses had battled to cast off their image as subservient handmaidens of the medical staff, with nurse education playing a pivotal role in promoting the image of autonomous professionals.

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Jim Devine, Unison's senior regional officer, said it seemed that the fight was beginning again, with many of the universities having no intention of assimilating the nurse educators on the terms and conditions enjoyed by their own academics.

Brian Fraser, industrial relations adviser to the Conference of Scottish Centrally-Funded Colleges, which represents four of the seven institutions involved, said the contracts were on the basis of nursing staff being transferred on their existing terms and conditions.

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"Harmonisation can't come from day one, because we haven't been funded for that, but we hope to move as quickly as is sensible towards harmonisation."

The seven institutions did not themselves have identical terms and conditions, Dr Fraser said, but he stressed that the nurse educators were full members of the academic staff. "The whole ethos is to have nursing education as part of the university culture, so it would be silly to create two cultures."

Mr Devine also claimed that a combination of contract underbidding and Government cuts had already resulted in strong hints that class contact times for student nurses would be reduced, raising concerns about the continued quality of nursing care.