an agreement on the number of hours lecturers should teach each week.

Bermuda Public Services Association general secretary Eugene Blakeney refused to comment on the agreement when contacted last week except to say that the BPSA hoped to "sign off on the matter next week''.

The news indicates that Bermuda College lecturers are unlikely to strike now as they had threatened to do when the college board refused to go to mediation to resolve the problem of contact hours -- the number of hours a lecturer spends in the classroom.

The BPSA's assistant general secretary, Edward Ball, said it took the Labour Department getting involved before the board agreed to go to mediation.

The lecturers felt their contact hours were 50 percent higher than lecturers in North America where they would work between 12 and 14 contact hours.

In Bermuda, lecturers were working anywhere between 20 and 24 contact hours coupled with hours spent preparing for classes, following classes up, in meetings, in the office and doing research.

The lecturers wanted their contact hours reduced to 16 with a maximum of 20.