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Heavier administrative workloads in colleges are damaging the student experience, research by the Further Education Development Agency has found.

More than 90 per cent of colleges reported a big rise in bureaucracy in the past five years, affecting all grades of teaching and support staff.

Lecturers spend up to two-and-a-half hours a week in meetings and do about 30 "administrative tasks" a week, yet hours have not increased in proportion. This was cutting in to time available to prepare for classes, the report said.