This year, I have been doing a lot of work around the issue of postgraduate students who teach and wanted to give everyone an update!

I promoted the NUS (National Union of Students) survey on Postgraduates who Teach at the end of last year and Warwick received the highest number of responses nationally - 7x the national average. A huge thank you to everyone who filled it in, you have really helped the fight for better working conditions!

The survey revealed some real issues across departments at Warwick. Here are some headline figures:

• 45% were not provided with a job description before applying for a teaching position
• 40% did not receive a formal contract stating working hours, pay, provision of sickness and holiday pay
• 45% found the allocation of teaching positions ‘somewhat fair’ and 18% found it ‘somewhat unfair’
• 9% of respondents find their pay ‘generous’. However, 30% find it ‘adequate’, 26% feel ‘underpaid’ and 14% considered themselves ‘grossly underpaid’
• 18% of respondents found the training ‘very useful’ and 48% found it ‘somewhat useful’
• 19% felt that their training was ‘not very useful’ and 5% considered it ‘not useful at all’

I propose a series of recommendations to improve the situation including:

• Fair and equal access to employment opportunities
• A letter of appointment, definitive job description and a written statement of terms and conditions
• Relevant and adequate training
• Pay for all employment responsibilities and hours of work
• Transparent and regular assessment and review procedures

I am now working with the University to address these concerns. I would like to see a code of practice which sets out guidelines for employing postgraduate students to teach!

I am also setting up a Graduate Teaching Committee, within the SU, to make sure these concerns are raised and addressed. The committee will be made up of postgraduate students who teach from each department and myself (Postgraduate Officer at the SU) as well as occasional representation from SU staff and the UCU.

If you want to make sure the problems that postgraduate students who teach face are properly discussed then contact me at postgrads@warwicksu.com about sitting on the committee!

For those of you who don’t know, I lead on environment and sustainability issues and it’s been an exciting few months here at the Students’ Union. Here’s an update on all things green…

NUS Green Impact Excellence Award 2013

Warwick SU has been awarded the Gold Exellence Green Impact award! We have won Gold Green Impact for the last 3 years which meant we were eligible for the excellence award this year. NUS Green Impact awards help create positive environmental change on campuses around the UK. Warwick chose to focus on the area of 'educational sustainability' which embeds environmental issues into academia by working with key stakeholders in the University. I have worked with IATL to encourage academic departments to green the curriculum, supported the IATL research fellow working on this area and have helped to develop student engagement in the creation of green modules!

Student Green Fund

The NUS has been awarded £5 million from HEFCE to create a student green fund. SUs can bid for up to £300k for a 2 year sustainability project. The projects have to meet 4 criteria: student participation, partnership, impact and legacy. The NUS will encourage and support individual students' unions to develop and submit high quality proposals that are completely fundable!

Some potential ideas include:

• Student switch off campaign for 2^nd/3^rd years in privately rented accommodation encouraging green habits and behaviour
• Bike hire scheme
• Solar panels
• Community enterprise project
• Student eats
• Green dragons den

This is a very exciting opportunity to create positive change on or around campus and increase awareness of environmental issues!

If you have any ideas about a potential project or want to know more then contact me at postgrads@warwicksu.com!

Postgraduate funding is in crisis and it is something that I am passionate about campaiging on. Over the last few weeks I have written an open letter on the issue and gathered signatures from within the University and from other Students' Unions. I am hoping to send the letter to various press sources in order to keep up the pressure on the government and Universities to find a solution to the funding problem.

Here's a copy of the letter:

'Postgraduate education in this country faces unprecedented challenges. A crisis in funding and access is now materialising. Following several years of continuing growth, recent HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) statistics reveal a disturbing downturn with postgraduate enrolments in this vital sector starting to decline.  There is now a major question mark over the future of postgraduate education especially with the first ‘9k students’ graduating in 2015. The Higher Education Commission noted that institutions and employers have repeatedly voiced their concerns that demand for postgraduate study would be affected by the increased fees. It is clear that we must urgently find a solution.

The funding currently available to postgraduate taught students is severely limited, especially now that there has been a restriction of Masters level funding from Research Councils. Struggling to meet upfront fees of around £8,000, students who cannot rely on savings or parental contributions are supporting themselves through worrying methods - paying for tuition fees on credit cards or through the use of commercial loans. Professional and Career Development loans are of particular concern given their high interest rates and short repayment timeframes. Students are being priced out of the postgraduate education system.

In a knowledge economy, postgraduate research is the foundation for many key professions from academia to engineering. With Masters degrees considered a condition for continuing onto research in many subjects and an important element of research training, we must redevelop the current funding system. Students leaving university at the age of 21, saddled with thousands of pounds worth of debt, are less likely to incur the costs of a postgraduate degree with little to no external funding available to assist them.

Taught postgraduate study risks becoming a luxury inaccessible to most students. It should instead be seen as the ‘new frontier of widening participation’ by policymakers - or we risk a number of professions turning into elitist domains populated by practitioners from restricted backgrounds. A sustainable funding structure is required and we cannot wait until this time-bomb has gone off.

A new campaign is therefore being organised, exerting pressure on the government as a matter of urgency to address this problem by introducing an appropriate funding system in this country which recognises the distinct needs of both taught and research students.'

If anyone has any questions regarding the campaign please don't hesitate to contact me via this blog or by e-mailing me at postgrads@warwicksu.com!

Hi everyone,

I hope you all had a good start to the academic year and have a well-deserved break. It’s been a really busy term for me and the rest of the team here at the Students' Union. This is just a selection of areas and issues that I have been working on this term:

Postgraduates who Teach Survey

You’ve probably had enough of me mentioning this but the survey on Postgraduate students who teach has now closed and Warwick got the highest number of respondents overall. I wanted to say a huge thank-you to those who filled it in; you have contributed to the fight against poor working conditions for postgraduate teachers! NUS will send us a Warwick report in January and I can then begin to lobby the University on this issue. I will keep you updated on this issue next term!

Centre for Lifelong Learning (CLL) and 2+2 students

Ben and I have been working with the CLL to improve relations and our engagement with students from the department. It is an area that the SU hasn’t typically engaged with before but we are looking at targeted e-mails, collaboration with academic societies and linking up with local colleges in Warwickshire and Coventry. Moreover, I will be conducting some research into part-time mature students next term with a series of focus groups.

PG Hub opening hours

The opening hours of the Hub has been a major bugbear for many postgraduate students and I have been pushing the University to extend the hours into the evening and weekends, however it has often been difficult to track down the person/department responsible. I have been told by the Hub staff that the space will be open till 8pm soon but this is clearly not satisfactory and I will continue to work on this issue next term.

PGA

We have had 2 PGA meetings so far in which we discussed a variety of concerns ranging from study space to cost of food. We also had an NUS speaker talking about national campaigns including the postgraduate funding crisis issue which is starting to become a national concern for government and the higher education sector. We will be hosting more meetings next term so keep an eye out for those!

Don’t forget…..

The Student’s Union is run for students and by students and therefore your opinion on what we should be doing is invaluable. If you have any thoughts on what the SU could do for the 9852 postgrads here at Warwick then please do let me know. Also, part of my job is dealing with casework from students so if you have a problem related to your course, department, faculty etc then please do contact me. I regularly meet with senior University administration and departmental heads and can raise your issues and get your questions answered! We are here to improve your University experience so get in touch!

On 21^st November, Warwick students will be marching alongside students from up and down the country as part of the NUS National Demo. There is an urgent need for Warwick postgrads to join us on the demo and fight for their education!

The most critical case for reform within the Higher Education sector is that of postgraduate funding – a time-bomb which has already gone off with many students already finding they cannot afford a postgraduate degree. Postgraduate study is the new frontier of widening participation with the prevalence of increasing up-front fees (for both Postgraduate taught and research students). In 2015 we will have the first 9k graduates and with this increased debt it is highly probable that people will be put off paying postgraduate fees.

There is also a lack of a feasible and affordable loan structure. The only loan system currently available to Home/EU students is that of Professional and Career Development loans. PCD loans have an extraordinarily high interest rate of 9.9% and must be repaid within 5 years amounting to about £126 a month. In addition, the number of loans granted has fallen and it is very difficult to acquire credit through this system in the first place.

The impact of recent funding cuts in the HE sector has had a dramatic and negative effect on postgraduate research students who teach. These students are the ones who run seminars and lab demonstrations and consequently have a major impact on undergraduate students’ studies. Departments are squeezed which means fewer teaching positions are available to PhD students who need the money and/or teaching experience. This experience is often a prerequisite for careers in academia making it a key area of concern for PhD students. This also means a reduction in pay and the pervasiveness of short-term contracts which ultimately results in poor working conditions for our students!

The benefits of postgraduate degrees are well-known and there is a clear premium relative to those with an undergraduate degree and more and more careers now require candidates to be educated to this level. However, students who wish to pursue postgraduate study face a funding barrier with many choosing to do their degree part-time to ease the cost. Postgraduate education, a necessity for our economy, is becoming more and more like private schooling whereby only those who can afford it are able to do so.

Little attention has been paid to the issue of access to postgraduate education. This is starting to change, slowly but surely. David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, recently stated his interest in looking at options for postgraduate funding. Also, the Higher Education Commission have recently conducted an inquiry into the issue and the NUS have produced a funding proposal which relies on a government-backed loan scheme.

Only time will tell what happens on a national scale but right now we need to stand together as a student movement and fight against this unfair and elite system of postgraduate education.

March with us on 21^st November for an alternative future for higher education! A future worth fighting for!