A CAMPAIGN to end the culture of short-term contracts in higher education was launched yesterday by major unions in the sector, writes .

Calling on Government and universities and colleges to end casualisation, they claim it leads to insecurity and misery.

They are also demanding the scrapping of a clause in the 1996 Employment Rights Act which allows employers to insist staff on fixed-term contracts waive their rights to unfair dismissal and redundancy compensation.

The Higher Education Casualisation Campaign claims 43% of academic staff are on such contracts and one third of technicians are casualised.

One researcher had 47 contracts in 15 years, and a technician 25 in 30 years.

The campaign is being backed by the Educational Institute of Scotland, the Association of University Teachers Scotland, Unison, and the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Scottish universities have had technical assistants on contracts for the past 20 years and, increasingly, cleaners are employed only from October to June.

A campaign spokesman said: ''Fixed-term contracts are, in fact, an expensive way of managing staff, as many employees find it necessary to resign before the contract is completed to find more secure work, resulting in ever more new contracts and extensions.

''Quality suffers because, however hard contract and part-time staff try, they are not equally integrated into academic departments and are less well supported.

''Students see a fragmentary procession of part-time teachers. Research funders find their funded research disrupted by rapid staff turnover.''