Holding a giant invoice made out to Boris Johnson, striking teachers, angry students and Daniel Zeichner made their feelings known about college funding on Wednesday 20 November.

Cuts to funding for colleges attended by 16- to 19-year-olds have been deeper and have gone on for longer than any other school sector.

There is currently a £700 million shortfall in funding for Post-16 education and the giant invoice covers the shortfall not met by Boris Johnson’s recent promises.

Cambridge Sixth Form colleges have been feeling the pinch after two deep cuts to further education funding were made after 2010, and the funding rate was frozen at £4,000 since 2013. Hills Road now offers fewer subjects and the average class size has grown by two, meanwhile at Long Road A-level German has been dropped from the curriculum.

Members of the National Education Union are taking action to secure the funding needed to sustain fair pay, reduce class sizes and reverse reductions in the number of subjects taught.

Mr Zeichner, who has long argued for fairer funding in Parliament, said:

“Like so much of the education sector our Sixth Form Colleges have been hung out to dry by this Government. Our excellent school sixth forms and colleges in Cambridge need more funding so they can deliver a world class education to our young people. Each time I visit, teachers tell me the same thing – they have amazing, hard-working and enthusiastic students, but they fear that the system is stacked against them.”