QCOLLEGE lecturers are due to strike today as part of a long-running pay dispute.

Members of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) at Orpington College and an Bromley College are upset their colleagues in schools earn an estimated 10 per cent more.

The strike was prompted by a 2.8-per-cent pay offer made by college employers to lecturers for the academic year 2005/06.

NATFHE head of colleges Barry Lovejoy said: "Our members are angry and resentful that while more and more is expected of them, their pay is slipping further and further behind that of schoolteachers."

An Orpington College spokesman said: "The college continues to be concerned about the differential funding of schools and colleges.

"We continue to make representation ourselves to ensure better funding for further education."

Lecturers get paid 10 per cent less than school teachers because there is no national pay structure for lecturers and colleges can set their own pay scales.