Staff still unhappy about pay, students alarmed at the prospect of fees and vice chancellors squeezed in the middle. Funding pressure built up at v-cs gathered in London this week to discuss the budget.

A sense of relief pervaded most reactions to the budget, if only because many feared that it could have been worse. But this did not extend to teacher training, hit by yet another change in target numbers.

HIGHER EDUCATION THE ADVICE

The Department for Education and Employment's letter of guidance to the ÖйúAƬ Funding Council for England, advised it to: * maintain an age participation rate of over 30 per cent, while controlling overall numbers tightly

* enable institutions to pay medical staff at the same rates as National Health Service clinicians

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* continue linking teaching funding with quality assessment

* promote expanded numbers of part-time undergraduates

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* allocate research funds more selectively.

THE RESPONSES

* Brian Fender, HEFC chief executive, said: "Institutions will welcome the significant rise above the 1995 statement, but they should plan on the basis of continuing pressure on their resources."

* Gareth Roberts, chairman of the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals, said: "We should not forget that university funding is still being squeezed. We stand by our evidence to Dearing that reform of the whole funding system is the only permanent solution."

* The Association of University Teachers called for a National Health Service-style pay review body for all academic staff. General secretary David Triesman, said: "It would be outrageous if the benefits achieved by every group in independent pay review were denied to us. It sends the message that the harder you work, the less you get. We want the fairness so obviously given to everyone else."

FURTHER EDUCATION THE ADVICE

DFEE's letter to the Further Education Funding Council called for:

* continued growth in the sector, including greater use of the Private Finance Initiative

* continued efficiency gains at an average of 5.3 per cent

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* continued work with Training and Enterprise Councils and government offices to make colleges more responsive to local labour market demands.

THE RESPONSES

* David Melville, FEFC chief executive said: "The settlement goes some way towards recognising the efforts colleges have been making to meet the Government's expansion targets at a time when they have been placed under severe financial pressure. Nonetheless, further average efficiency gains of 5 per cent over the next three years will cause great difficulties for many colleges."

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* John Brennan, Association of Colleges director of further education development, said: "We have not done very well, but it is not as bad as it might have been. There is a little more money in the system, but it will not go very far."

TEACHER TRAINING THE ADVICE

The budget prompted the Teacher Training Agency to issue their third set of recruitment targets in under a year.

* The steady growth ordered in January which became an order for rapid growth in the summer has now turned into a decline in intake goals for primary programmes and a levelling off for secondary.

* Increases of 30 per cent over the next three years in secondary teacher training numbers and 26 per cent in primary have become a cut of 6 per cent in primary and 2 per cent growth in secondary by 1999/2000.

THE RESPONSES

Anthea Millett, TTA chief executive, told institutions that the reduction in primary targets reflected over-recruitment in recent years and the potential impact of proposals to reduce premature retirement. "I recognise that this has serious implications for many providers of primary initial teacher training, and for the basis on which they have been planning for the medium term."

John Cater, chairman of the Standing Conference of Principals' teacher education sub-group, said: "We were horrified to discover that we had yet another big shift in intake targets. For less well-off institutions which are heavily involved in initial teacher training this could mean they will be left in a very vulnerable position."

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