I read this article in The Times Higher Education Supplement (THE), and I was left mystified as to the silence of our decision-makers, as the same scenario rolled out in Australia, and locally, since 1992. Let’s check and read the statements of the article. The Australian context in most ways mirror that in the United Kingdom:
- Lecturers at modern universities in the UK fear a ‘chipping away’ of their working conditions in the current round of cost-cutting and redundancies, which could precipitate a ‘massive change’ in what it means to be an academic;
- Several institutions have been accused of devising plans that would breach national agreements including the “post-92 national contract” that outlines various rights lecturers, senior lecturers and principal lecturers should enjoy while working at the former polytechnics, and the 2004 national framework that introduced a uniform pay structure across the sector;
- Post-92 universities have argued the agreements have become outdated and put them out of step with practices at other institutions;
- But University and College Union (UCU) branches have begun organising to defend the frameworks, which they say prevent a ‘race to the bottom’ in staff terms and conditions;
- …grade nine principal lecturer posts have been heavily impacted in a wave of redundancies and both institutions…;
- …concerned the new roles would be poorly paid with overwhelming teaching loads, leaving little opportunity to develop careers with research work…;
- “The university said”…[there will be] new entry-level position for those looking to begin their academic career, and similar roles are used successfully in other universities;
- [along with “the promise”] only some academics would remain in the traditional lecturer role, with time to develop their knowledge of a subject, revise curricula and produce teaching materials, while newer staff may find themselves reliant on others to dictate what they teach;
- [MY GOD! Isn’t this been one of my primary scholarly messages, as the clear warning, forced outside the university and unpaid as I am!] …People not doing research is just the starting point here,…It could slip into people not doing any sort of scholarship at all. That is a massive change in what we understand university education to be about;
- …testing the water to see what they can get away with and warned other measures such as a 550-hour annual cap on teaching hours – generally considered to be ‘sacrosanct’ – could come under threat next;
- …it was clear that the current financial pressures were going to result in more academics spending more time teaching and less on research, with older universities – such as the University of Kent – also affected;
- …prioritise teaching over research were also unlikely to solve universities’ financial struggles…
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Neville Buch
Professional Historian at Professional Historians Association (Queensland) Inc.
Neville Buch (Pronounced Book) Ph.D. is a certified member of the Professional Historians Association (Queensland). Since 2010 he has operated a sole trade business in history consultancy. He was a Q ANZAC 100 Fellow 2014-2015 at the State Library of Queensland. Dr Buch was the PHA (Qld) e-Bulletin, the monthly state association’s electronic publication, and was a member of its Management Committee. He is the Managing Director of the Brisbane Southside History Network.
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