to ask what lecturers, students & parents think - precarious employment in universities

[morningtoncrescent62]

I've just read this report claiming that universities are using a 'Sports Direct' model to employ lecturers, and the most prestigious universities are the worst. Are the percentages to be believed? The claim is that more than 50% of the staff at Russell Group universities are on precarious contracts which sounds like a huge proportion, and scandalous if it's true or anywhere near true. My DDs finished university before the £9,000 tuition fees (thank goodness!) but if I was a student or a parent now I'd be outraged if I or my children were being taught by people on rubbish pay and conditions which surely can only cost a fraction of the current tuition fees. Or am I being hopelessly naive?

irregular 60% might be an overstatement but in my field it's certainly true that Oxford is the single worst offender for advertising teaching 'jobs' that pay about £6k over six months (how they expect you to feed yourself over the summer is unclear) to do the same amount of teaching as a full lecturer would do. It's really noticeable and particularly bad given the cost of living in Oxford.

I think some of the apparent differences between universities will be differences in how they counted staff. For example, PhD students might do quite a bit of teaching, but count as students not staff, and I wonder whether some jobs come out as 'academic-related' even though they're covering lectures and so on?

My job finishes in 13 days. It does feel precarious and a bit strange because I'm going onto freelancing (not zero-hours, thank goodness).

Something that bothers me, though, is the assumption that we are cheating students or not good enough. I find that so depressing. I've taught since I was past the first year of my PhD and I really do care about it. I think I am quite good. I get good results and good feedback. And I still sometimes get people who think it's somehow 'unfair' for me to be teaching them and want Professor X.

I think the stability is the thing that really bothers me.

My MIL asked me a while back why I didn't swallow my pride and get a job teaching secondary school. She meant it nicely, but that's a lot of people's assumption: that if you're doing this sort of job and struggling financially, it must be that you're too proud to work properly like other people. I am not qualified to teach secondary school - no academic automatically is. Secondary school teachers have skills and training I just do not have and it'd be incredibly insulting to imply I could just pick up their job.

Oh - and, I have had some lovely supportive senior colleagues, but some really don't think before they speak. I had someone tell me how nothing has changed since he got his first job, when he too had a temporary postdoc and had to worry about instability. But he just worked his hardest, worried and published, and eventually got a job.

Except, he neglected to mention until prompted that he'd also bought his own home straight out of PhD, a home that was then probably quite affordable but must now be worth well over half a million ....

I have a casual contract on top of my normal permanent position and I think there are many other be others like me (there certainly are in department I work for) which will give a false impression. The casual work isn't worth it financially as although stated hourly rate is fine, I usually end up doing quite a bit more than the allocated hours in order to do a good job. I just do it for my CV and limit the amount I do as there are certainly easier ways to make money.

This is one of the reasons that i left lecturing. My zero hours contract was renewed term to term. I never knew how many hours I'd be teaching or whether I'd have any work at all! Some terms I had three hours teaching a week - how am I supposed to plan a life around that?

Also (and this is the bit that affects students), I'd often be told what I'd be teaching two weeks before a term starting. This led to me speed-reading thirty-odd books over Christmas or whatnot, and trying to 'cram' all the surplus stuff that I'd need to know in case of an awkward question. So I was hardly an expert on most of the things that I taught. My students could probably have taught themselves as I had to, two weeks before regurgitating it all to them.

Am now happily in a different career altogether!

I've done a quick count up at my College and the number of temporary teaching appointments is less than a third of the total. Of which about half are fairly decently paid 3-5 year positions.

This might not sound very sympathetic, but there are some people who I think if they aren't happy should just recognize that this isn't working out and look for something else. They would in other professions.

Yes, it's a huge problem. I've got a permanent full time position. There's always an underlying message that we should be grateful for what we've got and don't complain. In my experience, it's not a problem with regard to teaching quality--to me that those on hourly rates work extra hard to hope that teaching quality helps get a permanent contract.

There's a common perception that academics sit around doing nothing, which couldn't be further from the truth.

I think possibly it's rather insular to imagine that people 'just look for something else' in other professions - they don't, do they? Plenty of people get fed up with their careers and agitate for change rather than simply quitting.

Plus (and I think I'm agreeing with toast here), it's not really about being 'happy', is it?

That makes it sound as if you imagine everyone wants to be skipping through daisies in sunshine.

I'm pretty happy with my job most of the time, but I do also recognise it is not always the ideal way to deliver teaching.

This is a side point, but I would recommend anyone posting anything critical of their university is sure their username cannot be identified as them- posting anything critical on social media has been used to get rid of staff at a university I know. Just in case this gets picked up by the mail etc.

Also I've not met a student yet who really gives a shiny shite about this. They seem to think academics are overpaid as they don't understand how the 9k they pay is used. Also there aren't many who have the life experience necessary to fully understand how awful unreliable employment is. Mostly a lovely bunch but I have sometimes despaired when I hear them moaning about how little they get for their money.

I don't think my personal 'happiness' was the issue though. I was unhappy, yes, so I moved on with my excellent qualifications. It was easy and everything worked out.

The bigger issue to me was that I felt fraudulent, always chasing my tail to deliver hastily thrown together lecturers for people paying 9k a year for a world class education. However you look at it, that's not great.

This landed in my inbox this morning www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/blog/Pages/what-do-universities-spend-their-money-on.aspx

The blog is interesting but I don't like the fact that it gives the impression students fees are being used to fund research....

Thank you, Scentofwater, that's a very good point.

Museummum, we have a couple of schools that use hourly paid visiting lecturers like you, that have professional posts elsewhere, and they're completely invaluable for the 'real world' experience they use in their teaching, so I don't want to see a ban on hourly paid lecturing staff.

But equally we've got so many talented people that can't spread their wings and do proper research for us because of the hourly pay issue.

I'm trying to move on from my current position back into academic support. My current employment is permanent, but there is zero scope for advancement and my role is under constant threat of redundancy - I feel like I'm just waiting to be told with each round of budget cuts. BUT I cannot find anything within FE/HE that is not a short-term contract - a year at most. And I'm frightened to make that move. This is also the sort of thing that I think stymies so-called social mobility.

I don't like the fact that it gives the impression students fees are being used to fund research.

But they are effectively funding research. Fees pay most of the salaries of permanent academics, but permanent academics don't spend all their time teaching - they also do research.

thecompanyofcats

I hope I'm not being rude to ask what profession did you leave teaching in University to take up? I'd love to move into something else but so far I just cant seem to find the right one to match my qualifications. This job makes me unhappy :(

But isn't most research funded by other things? I admit, I've no idea, but I thought the fees of academics were only a very tiny part of a university's total research budget.

It depends on the research field. In some fields it would be normal for senior academics to get a high percentage of FTE from their research grants, thus effectively paying the university for their research time. This is not the case in most fields, though, particularly with research council budgets so stretched.

In my own department, research grants pay for post-docs (and equipment etc) but the post-docs do

In my area all research is grant funded. Core funding bring pays for some equipment and office costs etc but no research hours.

Yes, I have several friends on zero-hours teaching contracts at top unis. And have been asked several times myself if I'd considered taking one (as if). In my old department, almost all these contracts are given to women with young children, while permanent contracts go to the men. It's awful.

Hi Claudia - not rude at all. Do you mind me asking what your subject is? Mine was literature and I moved into marketing and that's worked out brilliantly because it draws on creativity day in, day out. I've got friends from various arts based disciplines who have similarly moved into marketing, media, advertising, etc. All of us are happier, a lot happier!

This might not sound very sympathetic, but there are some people who I think if they aren't happy should just recognize that this isn't working out and look for something else. They would in other professions.

This does sound quite unsympathetic, irregularegular. I'm not unhappy, no, but I am certainly underpaid given the number of hours I work and the skills I bring to the job. It's a matter of justice and equity. Saying 'just leave the profession if you're not happy' is a way of dodging the problem rather than facing up to the injustice of it.

I teach at the same institution as you, and believe me, there are a lot of us employed (over decades even!) on annually renewable contracts. I've had half a dozen different posts at different colleges within the university and there is huge variation from college to college. Your college may be one of the more ethical ones (especially if it's an old rich college) but others can be extremely exploitative.

For what it's worth I've also been a fellow, so I've seen things from both sides, so to speak. I am now doing the same work I did when I was a fellow for a fraction of the wage.

But they are effectively funding research. Fees pay most of the salaries of permanent academics, but permanent academics don't spend all their time teaching - they also do research.

A proportion of DHs salary is paid for by research grants and it easily covers the time spent on research. All of his post doc and post grads salarys are paid for by research grants. The university also takes a fair whack of the research funding to support their other overheads. None of the research I do is funded by student fees.