Postgraduate research students are increasingly being used as 'slave labour' to cut teaching costs at universities across the UK, a London conference heard yesterday.
They warned teaching conditions were getting dramatically worse as academic cuts bite and universities are under mounting pressure to cut costs.
PhD students – occupying the precarious first rung on the academic career ladder – are the most vulnerable group amongst teaching staff, working on short-term contracts and increasingly pressured into working for free. Ever more aspiring academics are being used as cheap substitutes for more experienced but expensive senior lecturers. Academics warned that undergraduate students being asked to pay a total of £27,000 in tuition fees for their degrees are becoming more vociferous about being taught by junior academic staff. In one incident a heated dispute arose between students and PhD teaching staff over the marking of essays.
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