The principal of Nescot College more than doubled her salary last year to £331,000 – while other lecturers saw their wages frozen.

Sunaina Mann, who is also CEO, received a huge 120 per cent pay rise in the 2014/15 financial year, having made £150,000 the previous year, according to a database of college financial data released by Government body, the Education Funding Agency.

When asked, the college in Ewell confirmed an even higher figure of £363,000 for Mrs Mann's pay package.

Other teaching staff saw a pay freeze this year – and their real wages have tumbled by an estimated 17 per cent over six years due to below cost of inflation increases.

Asked about the bumper pay-rise a spokesperson for Nescot said: “Sunaina Mann is the principal and CEO of the Nescot Group, which includes Nescot and the Jeddah College of Excellence.”

But it offered no reason for her huge pay rise, breakdown of where the money had come from, or explanation for the comparative decline in staff wages.

Mrs Mann, a former computer scientist who lives in Bookham with her husband and daughter, was given an OBE for services to further education in 2013.

She took over in 2005 after the college was placed in special measures. She achieved prominence as the first Asian woman principal of a further education college.

She had arrived in the UK from India as a child in the 1960s.

She has also been CEO of the Nescot Consortium company since September 2013.

It has offices in Saudi Arabia and won a £75m contract in July 2013 along with other universities and colleges to offer vocational education for women in the Saudi city Jeddah.

A University and Colleges Union spokeswoman said that staff had received pay freezes or lower than inflation pay rises for the past six years.

Birmingham Metropolitan College paid the second-highest salary, at £298,000, but this represented a ten per cent pay cut for the same role from 2013/14, according to Further Education Week.

The second-highest salary increase from 2013/14 to 2014/15 was 25 per cent – given to the principal of North Hertfordshire College.

Last year:

- The college’s total income was £26,848,000

- Total expenditure was £25,356,000

- And total profit was just under £1.5 million