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Postgraduate Teaching Assistants at UCL December 2016 (Final)

Introduction Around 45 percent of current PhD students have performed teaching duties at University College London.1 With Human Resources mandating that ‘departments should not employ so many [Postgraduate Teaching Assistants] that undergraduate students rarely come into contact with permanent staff’, it is possible that most of the teaching in some departments is carried out by postgraduate researchers.2

The UCLU Postgraduate Association has heard complaints from PhD students employed in teaching roles for many years, often anecdotal and with an air of reluctant acceptance. Some PhD students have been told that working for free is simply a part of their journey into academia.

In 2014, we launched the ‘Fair Play for TAs’ campaign calling for PGTAs to be paid a fair wage for all hours they work, and to have their rights secured through contractual employment.

Over the years, we have come to understand the following central grievances with PGTA recruitment and working conditions:

1. Many PGTAs are treated as casual workers; contracts are infrequent, issued at a departmental level and not standardised by UCL Human Resources. This means that many legal entitlements, such as access to holiday pay, are not acknowledged. It also promotes a sporadic and insecure working culture that excludes those with priorities and commitments external to academia, such as UCL’s student parents and carers.

2. Research students often have little choice but to accept teaching work, however poorly paid or recruited, since teaching experience is a vital prerequisite to any career in academia.

3. PGTAs may need to work longer hours than for which they are paid in order to deliver a standard of education satisfactory to their students and to their line manager, who may also be their PhD supervisor. These pressures can come into direct conflict with a doctoral student’s research commitments, which they are required to balance with their teaching responsibilities. Poor pay and working conditions may, therefore, push PGTAs out of academia entirely.

4. The lack of standardisation in the recruitment and training of postgraduates at UCL – together with a lack of clarity in the expectations made of teaching assistants by their respective departments through informal or absent

1 45 percent of respondents to the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) 2015 stated that they had taught or demonstrated during their research programme. 2 http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hr/docs/recruitment.php

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contracts – leads to unfair competition for posts. It also bypasses many of the vital safeguards that exist to prevent discrimination and prevent unnecessary pressures on students, often by supervisors, to undertake teaching responsibilities independent of their research.

2016 Survey In August 2016 we re-launched our campaign and ran two online surveys in an effort to quantify these problems, totalling 267 responses from PGTAs and a further 157 from other, non-teaching research students. Any evidence of overlap between the two surveys has been removed, though the smaller survey of 60 responses, being less comprehensive, was used to a lesser extent than the other. Those research students who have not taught were asked to specify why, as well the barriers they have faced in attempting to do so.

These surveys supplied the data for the present report. It should be noted that its quantitative elements – such as pay per hour and number of hours paid or worked overtime – are estimates provided by respondents, often in the absence of an official contract to state otherwise, and may therefore not wholly be accurate. It is used, rather, to flag up where problems may exist.

Since there is no centralised and available record of PGTAs at UCL, we cannot know how representative of the population this survey is. Nevertheless, this is an encouraging coverage.

Selection and Recruitment Respondents to the surveys held widespread concerns, across the university, that the recruitment of PGTAs is unfair and lacking in transparency. Human Resources requires that PGTAs be recruited in line with UCL’s Recruitment and Selection Policy; of particular relevance here, it mandates:

x A job description; x A person specification, detailing existing knowledge, skills and experience

required by the post; x The vacancy to be published in advance and through the online recruitment

portal; x An application to be made with a CV; x No informal meetings to be held with any applicants, unless with all; x An interview panel; x Shortlisting before a decision is agreed upon.

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There is widespread evidence that many – and often all – of these obligations are routinely flouted and ignored by recruiting departments, leading to unfair competition for posts and poor safeguarding over the quality of the education received by undergraduates.

When asked to select whether they would or would not like to teach, the overwhelming majority (between 87.2 and 94.4 percent) of those not currently teaching answered that they would; a third (32.8 percent) of Postgraduate Research students surveyed suggested that they would like to do so primarily in order to gain teaching experience, presumably for their academic portfolio. Other reasons stated were that it would be an ‘interesting challenge’ (43.2 percent) and money for living expenses (11.2 percent). 5.6 percent said they had no interest in teaching.

However, poor recruitment practice was cited as the predominant barrier to working as a teaching assistant, whether to gain necessary academic experience or otherwise. A plurality of respondents (41.6 percent) explained their reason for not currently teaching as there being both a lack of teaching opportunities advertised in their department. Moreover, a large proportion of those who cited a ‘lack of opportunities to teach’ may be wrong, since while there may be opportunities it is probable that poor recruitment procedures mean that they are poorly advertised:

‘Other’ comments (27.6 percent) can be broken down into:

6.6%

1.5%

5.1%

36.5%

41.6%

17.5%

5.8%

9.5%

9.5%

27.0%

I have no interest in teaching or teachingexperience

I have sufficient teaching experience for mycareer

I do not think that I would enjoy teaching

There are a lack of opportunities to teach in mydepartment

I have not seen any teaching opportunitiesadvertised by my department

I do not have the time to teach due to academicwork

I do not have the time to teach due to externalemployment

I do not have time due to other commitments.

I cannot teach at this stage of my course

Other - Please specify

Table 1. What are your main reasons for not currently working as a teaching assistant at UCL? Select all that apply.

“A lot of PGTAs … are picked based who they know, not on what they know, which I find fundamentally

unfair – you have to play the system as it is to get a position.”

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x Selection and recruitment: There is a widespread lack of clarity over the recruitment process and selection criteria. One student reported that this led to a ‘lack of confidence’ in their suitability, while others noted instances where positions were not advertised beyond the lecturer’s class or where they were reported on too short notice for students to rearrange their diary responsibilities accordingly.

x A lack of support within departments: There were a small number of cases of students being refused permission to teach, with one student describing their department as ‘derisory’ of such duties.

x A lack of relevant opportunities: Many advertised opportunities are not relevant to the student’s experience or academic portfolio.

x Pay and workload: One student described the pay they had seen advertised as ‘appalling’, while another expressed concern that teaching would be too time-consuming for the money advertised.

x Access requirements: One student was concerned that the intensive teaching culture associated with working as a PGTA would be inaccessible to individuals with requirements relating to health or disabilities.

The PGTA workforce under survey broadly reinforced these concerns over recruitment. Almost half (48.2 percent) disagree that ‘UCL jobs are openly and clearly advertised’.

These views were widely vindicated when teaching assistants were asked to specify how it was that they were recruited to their position:

28.5%

28.9%

35.6%

4.2%

10.2%

1.1%

I asked the department about available jobopportunities

I was personally invited to teach

It was advertised by email in thedepartment/faculty

It was advertised on the UCL website

A friend recommended me

Other (please specify)

Table 2. How did you hear about the job?

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Only 4.2 percent of vacancies were identified on the UCL website. Central HR theoretically host a database of PGTA positions, but this does not appear to be used; moreover, despite 15 percent of respondents earlier in the survey indicating that they taught in a separate department to that in which they were a student, the evidence here suggests that the vacancy page provided on the Joint-Faculty Office Intranet is also very underused as a mechanism to promote inter-departmental teaching:3

As a result, therefore, of the devolved system of PGTA recruitment, the selection process operates upon more informal methods and there are no systems in place to regulate how students are selected to teach. Only 35.6 percent of teaching assistants heard about their job through an all-departmental/faculty email. Of greater concern is that 28.9 percent of teaching assistants were personally invited to teach, and a further 10.2 percent were recommended to perform their tasks by a friend. There is, moreover, clearly a significant

onus on students to nominate themselves pre-emptively for appointment; currently, those already with some knowledge of how the recruitment operates within their department are, as a result, more likely to receive a teaching position than those who are not.

When asked about the specific recruitment processes through current PGTAs were admitted, the evidence suggests that very few students will have gone through all, if any, of the main stages in the selection process obligated by UCL HR:

3 The vacancy search form is part of UCL’s job search; the Joint-Faculty page can be accessed at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ah-shs-office/joint-faculty-pgta-vacancies.

85.0%

15.0%

Table 3. Is this the same faculty/department in which you teach?

Yes No

“Students are continuously advised to "ask" for opportunities, which can be both intimating and hard if you do not know who is responsible for the

teaching in that department… all teaching opportunities should be advertised within a centralised

database according to discipline, subject to a recruitment process like

any other role.”

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The devolved processes through which PGTAs are selected for their positions leads to poor and fragmented recruitment procedures. The lack of clarity in application procedures prevalent amongst the wider research student population is vindicated in the ways in which current teaching assistants have been recruited; it is neither clear, therefore, that the student selected teach in a given area is appropriate for the position, nor that applicants interested in teaching have a fair and equal chance of performing it. Ultimately, the many and varied responsibilities which UCL depends upon PGTAs

to perform are poorly distributed and rationalised, this stemming, it would seem, predominantly from the poor standardisation of institutional HR regulations.

Training and Professional Development As with recruitment, the training of PGTAs is standardised in institutional policy, but not in practice. UCL HR mandates that:

x All PGTAs must attend a three-hour UCL Arena One Gateway Workshop or an agreed equivalent induction session provided by their Faculty or Department.4

x Faculties are asked also to provide additional support for their PGTAs, amounting to at least three hours in total in each PGTA’s first year of teaching and continuing support.

4 This is also required by the UK Quality Assurance Agency (QAA).

60.8%

45.9%

62.1%

28.7%

39.2%

54.1%

37.9%

71.3%

I saw a job description

I saw a person specification

I submitted an application/CV

I attended an interview

Table 4. Did you go through a recruitment process?

Yes No

“I've been turned down because I've already had teaching experience, but

also because someone else had more experience, so the

hiring process is not transparent, and is not the

same across different departments.”

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x In particular, faculties or departments should provide guidance relating to small group teaching, assessment, giving feedback, and, where appropriate, laboratory supervision.

x PGTAs with a substantive teaching role which includes assessment and feedback should be strongly encouraged to attend the Teaching Associate Programme (TAP).

There is evidence, however, that few of these obligations are provided for at either an institutional or faculty level.

It is encouraging that the majority of PGTA students have attended the Arena One course. Nevertheless, coverage is of course incomplete; numerous comments to the survey reflected, moreover, a lack of spaces on Arena One, with some respondents report having applied repeatedly to the course but having never secured a place.

UCL HR mandates that no research student spend more than 180 hours per week teaching, amounting to around nine hours per term time week; indeed, respondents to the survey are paid, on average, for 8.9 hours per week, with an additional 3.8 hours reported as unpaid. Therefore it is concerning that, despite this indicating that a large majority of teaching assistants work with a ‘substantive

teaching role’, only 22.5 percent of PGTAs attended the TAP.

The reason for this is unclear. It may be that faculties and departments do not either adequately advertise the TAP or make it mandatory for those PGTAs most in need of

67.5%

22.5%

17.5%

21.5%

27.5%

22.0%

10.0%

15.5%

I attended the UCL Arena One course (three-hoursession provided by CALT)

I attended the extended UCL Arena One TeachingAssociate Programme

I received at least three hours of mentoring orguidance in my first year from either my faculty or

department

My faculty or department gave me guidance onsmall group teaching

My faculty or department gave me guidance onassessment

My faculty or department gave me guidance onproviding feedback

My faculty or department gave me guidance onlaboratory supervision

None of the above

Table 5. What, if any, training did you receive? Tick all that apply.

“It seems like they do not care if we are

employable in academia after we

graduate.”

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further training; alternatively, there may be too few places provided by the Centre of Advanced Leaning and Teaching.

Regardless, sporadic and unpaid training is also likely to be a key factor in the university’s underperformance in the National Student Survey (NSS) and the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES). Undergraduate satisfaction in 2015 at UCL (86) ranked below the sector average (87) in the NSS, resulting particularly from poor academic support (76), assessment and feedback (64) and organisation and management (80) – all key tasks performed to some degree or another by PGTAs. Similarly, in 2015 UCL fell below the sector average in the number of opportunities to teach and by the number of PGTAs who felt they had been appropriately and sufficiently trained and supported; satisfaction in ‘teaching’ therefore stood at 54 percent, against a 57 percent sector average. This area is also UCL’s lowest performing in the PRES survey.

Employment and Workload The vast majority of the PGTA workforce is highly casualized, leaving research students insecure in their employment status and workload, and undergraduate students unable to identify their academic staff with sufficient consistency.

It is a regulation of UCL HR that PGTAs ‘be issued with a contract of employment’ of the appropriate type (whether fixed-term, ‘as and when’ or otherwise). But, in practice, this is poorly implemented:

43.0%

18.0%

39.0%

Table 6. Were you provided with a contract of employment?

No contract Contract not specifying hours Contract specifying hours

“HR in my faculty is an absolute nightmare. I had several

missed/late payments as did my colleagues; the administrative system really makes PGTAs

feel undervalued and abused. There are many unethical

practices that UCL conducts with no repercussions. For

example many PGTA were not paid following Christmas.”

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A large minority of PGTAs (43 percent) were not provided with a contract; of those who were, only around two thirds were informed of the hours that they were expected to work, whether weekly or otherwise.

Insecure contracts of employment, especially a lack of advance notice of teaching hours, also place unique pressures on research students with caring responsibilities. According to separate research carried out by UCLU, it is estimated that around 45 percent of UCL’s student carer population are research students, and so around a quarter of all PhD students may have these responsibilities; yet, only 10.5 percent of respondents to the survey were parents or carers.

Moreover, the limited prevalence of contracts of employment with clearly defined hours is in spite of the fact that, within those who knew the hours expected of them on a weekly basis, the average PGTA was paid to work 8.9 hours per week; this is just shy of the nine hours per term time week (180 hours per year) regulated by UCL as the maximum amount of time that a research student is allowed to teach. Moreover, PGTAs are responsible for a comprehensive list of tasks:

69.5%

44.0%

57.5%

29.0%

25.5%

66.5%

16.0%

13.5%

10.0%

4.5%

21.0%

1.5%

25.5%

7.0%

Marking work (including providing writtenfeedback)

Meeting students to give feedback on work

Advising students on assignments

Writing teaching material

Delivering lectures

Leading seminars/tutorial groups

One-on-one or small group language teaching,e.g. oral conversation

Pastoral support (looking after the personal well-being of students)

Transcription/typing/data entry

Non-teaching lab technical duties

Non-teaching administrative work

Library duties

Office hours

Other

Table 7. What tasks did the teaching involve? Tick all that apply.

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When accounting for unpaid hours, PGTAs work far in excess of these hours – in breach both of the institution’s HR policy on maximum teaching hours and that which mandates all teaching assistants be paid ‘for contact hours and such time as is necessary for preparation of teaching material and assessment of work’.

Almost all PGTAs work unpaid overtime. Respondents estimated that, on average, they work 3.8 hours per week beyond what they are expected to do; that is, 29.8 percent of all the work carried out by teaching assistants is done so without any pay at all.

Respondents to the survey were also asked to specify the areas where they most often worked beyond their paid amount:

In all tasks, therefore, the vast majority of PGTAs did at least some overtime work; preparation, marking and providing feedback are the most poorly paid areas, yet are vital teaching responsibilities. It is also worrying that such a large proportion of teaching assistants were asked to perform administration tasks (which do not even provide experience in teaching) without this being specified in their hourly or weekly pay.

5.1%

11.6%

14.6%

5.6%

11.1%

37.9%

19.2%

25.8%

16.2%

21.7%

27.3%

14.6%

19.2%

16.7%

14.6%

13.6%

18.7%

19.2%

19.7%

23.7%

9.1%

11.6%

8.6%

15.7%

11.6%

6.1%

23.2%

10.6%

25.3%

15.7%

Teaching

Marking

Admin

Preparation

Providing Feedback

Table 8. In order to complete your teaching responsibilities, how often did you have to work beyond the hours you were paid?

N/A Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very often

“If I only ‘worked to rule’ on the amount of hours I was paid to

prepare for seminars, I would not be able to prepare them

adequately and most of my time would be spent doing admin or

giving feedback on written work.”

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The topic of overtime work is even more acute when the level of official pay is factored in. UCL regulations state that, at a minimum, PGTAs should be paid at the bottom spine point of Grade 5 (currently £12.40 with the London Allowance), with yearly progression.

This base pay is far below almost all other higher education institutions. A table of this data can be found in Appendix A.

Through these surveys, teaching assistants (whether paid through their stipend or employed as workers) were asked to specify either the hourly rate they received from their employers, or to estimate it by dividing their overall pay by their allocated work hours. This returned an average hourly pay of £14.68.

This puts the average hourly wage in practice at an estimate of £10.31.

It is therefore not a surprise that there is such widespread antipathy to pay from UCL’s PGTA workforce. When those who listed delivering lectures and/or seminars amongst their tasks, a majority (52.7 percent) of all teaching assistants ‘disagreed’ that teaching opportunities at UCL were fairly paid, a third of whom ‘strongly’ disagreed.

When accounting for overtime, PGTAs are paid far below both UCL regulations and that which would be an accurate reflection of the importance of the work they carry out across the institution; a significant number of respondents indicated, indeed, that they had applied for teaching posts at other universities (including Birkbeck and Imperial) where pay was far higher.

At UCL, the workload needed in order to carry out departmental teaching duties would appear, therefore, to be poorly rationalised, to the detriment of both research students and the undergraduates whom they teach, with a minimum base pay inadequate for their responsibilities.

Departmental Variation Departments which returned more than five responses were ranked according to average hourly pay (official and ‘real’, i.e. including unpaid overtime). This can be seen in Appendix B.

Hourly pay varies drastically across departments, as do the number of included hours for marking and preparation (and therefore unpaid overtime). The UCL School

“PGTA pay should be standardised across departments. I earn

13.80 in one department and 11.80 in another for

the same tasks.”

“After my funding ran out I took on a three-day a week job while completing my PhD and taught at UCL two days a week. That money amounted to around £2500 for a whole year, while the three-day week job amounted to £16,500. The difference is laughable. On another note,

I was once asked if I wanted to pour wine at a postgrad department party - I

would be paid £12.14 per hour, the same rate as teaching. That shows how

undervalued PGTAs are.”

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of Management in the Engineering is an example of good practice, therefore, paying both a high enough number of teaching hours to include most preparation and assessment time, but also providing a strong hourly rate in recognition of the important responsibilities carried out by PGTAs.

Table 9 records this departmental variation:

£0.00 £5.00 £10.00 £15.00 £20.00 £25.00

UCL School of European Languages, Cultureand Society

UCL Science & Technology Studies

UCL School of Slavonic & East EuropeanStudies

UCL Division of Psychology & LanguageSciences

UCL Division of Surgery & InterventionalScience

UCL Institute of Archaeology

UCL Earth Sciences

UCL Chemistry

UCL Centre for Multidisciplinary &Intercultural Inquiry

UCL Computer Science

UCL Division of Biosciences

UCL Statistical Science

UCL AVERAGE

UCL History

UCL Philosophy

UCL Political Science

UCL School of Management

Table 9. PGTA Pay by Department

Hourly Pay with Overtime (Average) Hourly Pay (Average)

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Pay Gap – Gender Overall, our research suggests that, for like-for-like work, female TAs are paid drastically less than are men at UCL. This is due to the fact that men are paid to work more hours than women are, and are also paid a higher wage. Women receive 22 percent less than men per paid hour of work, and are also expected to work 3.1 percent fewer hours per week than men:

In total, then, we estimate that men take home £173.53 per week, while women receive £94.13. Women therefore receive only 54 percent of the weekly pay that men do:

There is also a smaller but nevertheless significant gap in the number of hours worked overtime and unpaid by men and by women. On average, men work 4.0 hours per week beyond that for which they are paid, while women work 3.7. On the one hand, this suggests that men are burdened overall with more work than women, paid or not but, as a proportion of total hours worked, women work a greater amount

10.7

7.4

0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

Men Women

Table 11. Paid Hours Per Week

£16.36

£13.23

£0.00£2.00£4.00£6.00£8.00

£10.00£12.00£14.00£16.00£18.00

Men Women

Table 10. Hourly Pay

£174.72

£97.85

£0.00£20.00£40.00£60.00£80.00

£100.00£120.00£140.00£160.00£180.00£200.00

Men Women

Table 12. Total Pay Received Per Week

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of time without pay than men do; 27 percent of the total work men do is without pay, and 33 percent of women’s.

Accounting for unpaid hours, then, male PGTAs work for an average hourly pay of £11.88 and women for £8.85 (below the London living wage).

Hourly pay variation by gender appears to arise predominantly from the more general differences in pay across departments at an institutional level; women are

more clustered around faculties and departments which pay less, while men are more common in disciplines which typically offer a higher base pay grade than is required by UCL’s central HR policy. For example, all of our survey’s respondents from the UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences (official pay of £13.30) and most from UCL Science and Technology Studies (£12.60) were women, while all respondents from UCL Computer Science

(£14.95) and all but one from Political Science (£16.40) were men.

It is possible that this gendered pay gap is a key factor in the low percentage of research students who teach as PGTAs, around 80 percent of who we estimate to be women; UCLU has heard many complaints from student carers whose childcare costs are higher than that which they receive from teaching.

Action therefore is needed to level up any pay divisions and ensure that a policy of equal pay for equal work is enforced. According to our data, increasing the minimum base rate from Grade 5 to Grade 6 would halve the gender pay gap, lowering it from 22 percent to 11 percent.

Gendered divisions in pay within departments, as analysed in those with sufficient respondents, were negligible. Nevertheless, while the data is inconclusive due to the

27.4%

33.1%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

35.0%

Men Women

Table 14. Proportion of Hours Per Week Unpaid

4.03.7

0.00.51.01.52.02.53.03.54.04.5

Men Women

Table 13. Hours Worked Unpaid Per Week

“Teaching is under-resourced. Students do not feel they can expect a response from

course admins about administrative issues (e.g. marking scheme), so they ask TAs, who are not told themselves. Lecturers…

are given too many students by the college, even after protesting. I no longer

wish to pursue a career as a lecturer after my experiences at UCL.”

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paucity of respondents, in a number of departments (such as UCL Philosophy, UCL Chemistry and UCL School of Management), men had been contracted to carry out significantly more hours of work per week than women, perhaps a factor in the results shown in table 11.

In order to mitigate the likely of gender discrimination, recruitment procedures need to be standardised and thereby policies on recruitment and selection better enforced.

Pay Gap – Fee Status There is also a very significant variation in the pay (both with and without overtime) in PGTAs by student fee status. The average hourly pay of a UK home citizen is £15.33, EU citizens £14.10 and international students £13.40; with overtime, these figures are £10.92 for home citizens, £9.54 for EU citizens and £9.24 for international students.

As a result, compared with UK home students, EU citizens are paid 8 percent less and international students 12.6 percent. Accounting for overtime, these proportions are even more dramatic; EU citizens receive 12.7 percent less than UK home citizens, and international students 15.4 percent less.

A graphical representation of these figures can be seen in table 15:

It is not clear why this is the case. Increasing the minimum base pay rate from Grade 5 to 6 would reduce the hourly pay gap for international students from 12.7 percent to 11.6 percent and EU citizens from 8 percent to 5.2 percent.

A large component in the fee status pay gap is therefore a departmental variation, as with the gender pay gap; but we cannot rule out discrimination as a cause. Most likely, alongside an increasing minimum base pay, better recruitment standardisation would soften the pay division and effect barriers to reduce discrimination.

£15.33 £14.10 £13.40

£10.92 £9.54 £9.24

£-

£2.00

£4.00

£6.00

£8.00

£10.00

£12.00

£14.00

£16.00

£18.00

Home EU International

Table 15. PGTA Pay by Fee Status

Hourly Pay Hourly Pay with Overtime

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Recommendations The University and College Union (UCU) has, in conjunction with the National Union of Students, published a Postgraduate Employment Charter which it encourages all relevant higher education institutions to adopt.5

This would serve as a model of good practice for UCL to adopt. To secure this, and to end the practices that push the university below so many of its counterparts within the sector, UCLU recommends the following measures to be introduced:

1. A basic, obligatory pay beginning at the bottom of Grade 6 rather than Grade 5, moving the minimum hourly rate from £12.40 to £14.47. While this modest pay increase would still place UCL below many of its counterparts, such a change would halve the gender pay gap, and mitigate that by fee status as well as the flouting of regulations around paid hours common at a departmental level.

2. Hours worked for admin tasks should be paid in line with the minimum hourly rate, since the current regulations state pay is only mandatory for contact hours, preparation, teaching and assessment.

3. PGTAs should be eligible for teaching awards where they are not, as well as other elements of the professional academic culture enjoyed by full-time teaching staff (such as membership of UCL staff networks).

4. Contracts should be standardised and directly approved by central HR. All contracts should also sstate that PGTAs have the right to join UCU, being the recognised teaching trade union on campus.

5. A PGTA’s line manager may not be their supervisor, in order to fully distinguish employment from study.

6. Payment should be made for all training hours. The TAP should be recommended for all PGTAs whose teaching duties amount to an agreed number of working hours (e.g. two hours of lectures or five hours in total), and CALT should dedicate resources to creating more available spaces in these courses.

7. No students should be required to teach as a condition of their stipend. Teaching assistants in this position have much less power over their responsibilities than those employed, and are in any case already only a small proportion of the PGTA workforce.

This report has also indicated that many of the regulations already embedded in UCL’s PGTA scheme are poorly enforced, if at all. Moving forward, UCLU’s Postgraduate Student Officer will meet with students and staff in this survey’s worst performing departments to discuss problems and campaign for improvements in the recruitment, pay and wider conditions of teaching assistants at the institution’s local level. Recommendations will be made to the relevant managers and deans.

5 The Postgraduate Employment Charter can be accessed at https://www.ucu.org.uk/postgradcharter.

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However, at an institutional level, it is imperative that a centralised and standardised system of PGTA recruitment be introduced and enforced:

x A centralised system of recruitment (recruited, naturally, with departmental participation and according to their needs, through the existing job vacancy form hosted on the UCL HR website) would ensure that all students have a fair chance of receiving employment as a teaching assistant.

x Currently, all students with access/disability requirements may inform Student Disability Services, allowing for appropriate teaching supervision to be put into place; however, as employees, a PGTA’s line manager has no access to this information, and depends on the student to declare it. A more standardised system would make recruitment and employment practice more inclusive and introduce more stringent barriers to prevent discrimination.

x Informal recruitment procedures often place pressure upon students not to declare their working hours, particularly if offered the position by their supervisor. It should be as easy as possible for students to declare time worked directly to HR.

Mark Crawford Postgraduate Students’ Officer, UCLU

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Appendices

Appendix A: Hourly Pay in National Counterparts

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Counterparts outside London

Institution Hourly Pay for Teaching (Exclusive of London Allowance)

Leeds Trinity University (2014) £9.966 UCL Grade 5 (current) £10.84 University of Leicester (2014) £11.20; but £37.71 when including £9,651 maintenance grant.

7 UCL Grade 6 (proposed) £12.91 University of Bath (2015) £13.058 University of Bangor Approximately £13.30 per hour (£25, 296 annual salary rate)9 University of Leeds £14.31 for non-demonstrating module assistance, £12.00 for

demonstrating10 University of Bristol (2015) £14.4411 University of Exeter (2015) £15.9612 University of Cardiff (2015) £19.8813 University of Warwick (2014) £19.73 – £29.3214 University of East Anglia (2014) £56.37 per lecture15

Counterparts within London

Institution Hourly Pay for Teaching (Inclusive of London Allowance)

UCL Grade 5 (current) £12.40 UCL Grade 6 (proposed) £14.47 School of Oriental and African Studies

£15.4816

Queen Mary University of London (2014)

£73.44 per lecture17

A number of survey respondents performed additional teaching tasks at other universities (such as Imperial College London and Birkbeck) where hourly pay was far higher, but the precise figures paid for these tasks have not yet been found.

6 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/huge-variation-in-graduate-teaching-assistants-pay/2012859.article 7 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/huge-variation-in-graduate-teaching-assistants-pay/2012859.article 8 http://www.bath.ac.uk/hr/hrdocuments/casual-pay-rates-2014-2015.pdf 9 http://hr.leeds.ac.uk/PG_teaching_assistance ms/roleprofiles.php.en 10 http://hr.leeds.ac.uk/PG_teaching_assistance 11 http://www.bristol.ac.uk/hr/hpt/hpt-payrates.html 12 http://www.exeter.ac.uk/staff/employment/payandconditions/casual/managers/ratesofpay/ 13 http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/fince/servicesstaff/salaries/studentdemonstrators/ 14 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/huge-variation-in-graduate-teaching-assistants-pay/2012859.article 15 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/huge-variation-in-graduate-teaching-assistants-pay/2012859.article 16https://jobs.soas.ac.uk/fe/tpl_soasnet01.asp?s=4A515F4E5A565B1A&jobid=68073,1236799877&key=22353498&c=237152988372&pagestamp=dboiuupxiruymmoioc 17 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/huge-variation-in-graduate-teaching-assistants-pay/2012859.article

20

Appendices

Appendix B: 2016 Surveys: Departmental Variation.

21

Faculty Department Paid Hours (Weekly Average)

Unpaid Overtime (Weekly Average)

Proportion of Work Unpaid

Hourly Pay (Average)

Hourly Pay with Overtime (Average)

Arts & Humanities UCL School of European Languages, Culture and Society 5.3 8.1 60.4% £12.50 £4.94

Mathematics & Physical Sciences

UCL Science & Technology Studies 4.2 5.3 55.8% £12.60 £5.57

Social & Historical Sciences UCL School of Slavonic & East European Studies 5.6 5.3 48.6% £13.10 £6.73

Brain Sciences UCL Division of Psychology & Language Sciences 4.4 3.7 45.7% £13.30 £7.22

Medical Sciences UCL Division of Surgery & Interventional Science 9.3 1.5 13.9% £8.70 £7.49

Social & Historical Sciences UCL Institute of Archaeology 7.3 5.6 43.4% £13.90 £7.87 Mathematics & Physical Sciences UCL Earth Sciences 8.8 4.5 33.8% £12.60 £8.34

Mathematics & Physical Sciences UCL Chemistry 9.6 3.7 27.8% £11.90 £8.59

Arts & Humanities UCL Centre for Multidisciplinary & Intercultural Inquiry 6.2 2.3 27.1% £12.43 £9.07

Engineering UCL Computer Science 11.6 7.4 38.9% £14.95 £9.13

Life Sciences UCL Division of Biosciences 8.7 2.4 21.6% £12.10 £9.48 Mathematics & Physical Sciences UCL Statistical Science 5 1.6 24.2% £12.80 £9.70

UCL AVERAGE 8.9 3.8 29.8% £14.68 £10.13

Social & Historical Sciences UCL History 8.2 2.3 21.9% £14.00 £10.93

Arts & Humanities UCL Philosophy 11.8 2.6 18.1% £13.90 £11.39

Social & Historical Sciences UCL Political Science 8.8 3.17 26.5% £16.40 £12.06 Engineering UCL School of Management 9.4 2.2 19.0% £20.40 £16.53

22

Appendices

Appendix C: UCU-NUS Postgraduate Employment Charter

The Employm

ent Rights Act 1996 statesthat you should have a contract w

ith afull statem

ent of your terms and

conditions when you start your job.

Part-time w

orkers have the right to betreated no less favourably thancom

parable workers on full-tim

econtracts. Sim

ilarly, fixed-term em

ployeeshave the right to be treated no lessfavourably than com

parable permanent

employees. This m

eans that you shouldbe paid equal pay to other m

embers of

staff doing work of equal value.

You should also have the same access

to work facilities as other m

embers of

staff including computing facilities,

photocopying and secretarial support. If you don’t and the reason is becauseyou are part-tim

e or fixed-term (or hourly

paid) then you may be able to challenge

your employer.

You should be paid for all hours worked

and you should be provided with

holiday pay.

You should have access to a grievanceprocedure if you need to m

ake a formal

complaint.

Any complaints about you or your w

orkshould be handled in accordance w

ithan agreed disciplinary, capability orprobation policy.

You have the legal right to join a union.

Your employer has a legal responsibility

for the health, welfare and safety of staff

and you should have a safe and healthyw

ork space.

You should not be discriminated against

on the grounds of your sex, sexualorientation, race, disability, age, religionor belief or your m

embership of or

non-mem

bership of a trade union.

As an employee you have the right not

to be unfairly dismissed after tw

o years.If you are m

ade redundant and havew

orked for at least two years you are

entitled to redundancy pay.

of postgraduate students had taught or demonstrated at their

institution during their research programm

e51%

Postgraduate Research Experience Survey 2013

received formal training (only 40%

in clinical medicine)

62%agreed they received appropriate support and guidance, 29%

disagreed57%

2012 Postgraduates who teach survey

Key statsPostgraduate students: know

your employm

ent rights!W

hile the Postgraduate Employm

ent Charter outlines good practice,being an em

ployee means you have certain specific rights in law

:

of postgraduates that teach at UK H

EIs did not receive ajob description

49%

did not receive a full contract of employm

ent50%

believed that they were receiving an unfair level of pay for their w

ork43%

of postgraduate teachers earn less than the national m

inimum

wage

in real terms

30%of postgraduates w

ere expected to teach without any form

al training from their

university or department

22%

of postgraduates who teach do not receive any feedback from

their students 30%

of postgraduate teachers receive no feedback on their teachingfrom

the module lecturer

50%of postgraduate teachers have no departm

ental representation and a further37%

do not know if they have a representative

31%

of postgraduate teachers were either m

embers of a trade

union or were interested in joining one

53%Many postgraduates are “forced” to

teach, regardless of their interest orability, as part of their course, or as aprerequisite for a scholarship or bursary.

Postgraduates teaching in arts andhum

anities subjects are the least happyw

ith their pay: on average, they are onlypaid for one in every three hours w

orked.

Post

grad

uate

empl

oym

ent

char

ter

Cont

act y

our l

ocal

UCU

bra

nch

to s

ee if

you

can

wor

k to

geth

er to

lobb

y you

r ins

titut

ion

to im

plem

ent t

he P

ostg

radu

ate

Empl

oym

ent C

harte

r

Appr

oach

pos

tgra

duat

es o

n w

hat k

inds

of s

uppo

rt a

nd re

pres

enta

tion

they

are

lack

ing

and

how

they

wou

ld li

ke th

e pr

inci

ples

of t

he C

harte

r to

be p

ut in

to p

ract

ice.

Toge

ther

with

your

inst

itutio

n, U

CU, a

nd p

ostg

radu

ate

stud

ents

, exp

lore

whe

ther

ther

ear

e ef

fect

ive

and

appr

opria

te p

olic

ies

on s

uppo

rt fo

r pos

tgra

duat

es w

ho a

re e

mpl

oyed

by th

e in

stitu

tion

and

for p

ostg

radu

ates

that

teac

h, a

nd s

ugge

st im

prov

emen

ts.

Stud

ents

’ uni

ons

shou

ld e

ncou

rage

pos

tgra

duat

es e

mpl

oyed

by t

heir

inst

itutio

n to

join

UCU

so

that

they

can

be

repr

esen

ted

in e

mpl

oym

ent i

ssue

s th

at a

stud

ents

’ uni

on h

asle

ss a

utho

rity o

r exp

ertis

e on

.

Post

grad

uate

s in

em

ploy

men

t hav

e th

e rig

ht to

join

a tr

ade

unio

n an

d U

CU h

as th

eca

paci

ty to

repr

esen

t em

ploy

ed p

ostg

radu

ates

if th

ey h

ave

grie

vanc

es a

nd is

sues

rela

ted

to th

eir e

mpl

oym

ent.

Post

grad

uate

s w

ho a

ren’

t em

ploy

ed b

y the

ir in

stitu

tion

can

join

UCU

as

stud

ent

mem

bers

for F

REE.

Join

ing

UCU

giv

es yo

u co

llect

ive

stre

ngth

: UCU

exe

rts

an im

porta

nt in

fluen

ce o

nin

stitu

tiona

l and

nat

iona

l hig

her e

duca

tion

polic

y and

con

ditio

ns o

f em

ploy

men

t

UCU

figh

ts fo

r gre

ater

job

secu

rity f

or st

aff o

n fix

ed-te

rm a

nd h

ourly

-pai

d co

ntra

cts.

UCU

offe

r pro

fess

iona

l dev

elop

men

t cou

rses

and

dow

nloa

dabl

e re

sour

ces

cove

ring

ara

nge

of to

pics

for p

ostg

radu

ates

and

ear

ly c

aree

r res

earc

hers

.

Man

y pos

tgra

duat

es a

re a

ctiv

ely i

nvol

ved

in th

eir l

ocal

UCU

bra

nche

s. M

any b

ranc

hes

have

a s

peci

fic o

ffice

r to

repr

esen

t pos

tgra

duat

e st

uden

ts.

You

can

join

UCU

by v

isiti

ng w

ww

.ucu

.org

.uk/

join

or b

y pic

king

up

anap

plic

atio

n fo

rm fr

om yo

ur lo

cal U

CU b

ranc

h

For m

ore

info

rmat

ion

on p

ostg

radu

ate

empl

omen

t, vi

sit o

ur w

ebsi

te:

ww

w.n

usco

nnec

t.org

.uk/

cam

paig

ns/p

ostg

rad

How

stud

ents

’ uni

ons c

an u

se th

e ch

arte

r

Why

pos

tgra

duat

es sh

ould

join

UCU

Fair, transparent and equitableappointm

ent proceduresPostgraduates should be offered em

ployment opportunities

at their institution though a formal and transparent process.

Positions should be advertised with a job description such

that qualified students are equally able to apply for the role and understand the w

ork that is expected of them. Successful

applicants should receive a contract stating working hours,

amount and regularity of pay, provision for sickness and holiday

leave and the recognised trade union.

A fair rate of pay for all hours worked

All postgraduates who teach should be paid, and this should

include recognition of time spent on preparation, m

arking,adm

inistration, attending lectures and supporting students. U

CU recom

mends 2.5 tim

es the hourly rate for every teachinghour, based on a salary spine point in the university pay scale. It should be clear how

payment and taxation processes are

managed and, for international students, how

National

Insurance numbers are obtained.

Compulsory teaching and teaching

bursariesA postgraduate student should never be forced to teach w

ithoutpay as part of their doctoral program

me, or as a criteria for

receiving a fee waiver or other non-cash bursary. Bursaries or

scholarships which require a student to teach should provide

at least the cash equivalent a student would receive if they w

ereregularly em

ployed to teach, as well as the sam

e employm

entrights and support as those on regular em

ployment contracts.

Supervision or mentoring, line m

anagement,

and review of progress provided by a

suitably qualified staff mem

ber who is not

the research supervisor Postgraduates w

ho teach should be able to raise issues, andseek advice from

, a single academic point of contact w

ho isqualified to supervise postgraduate teaching and w

ho is in a position potentially to provide an academ

ic reference in the future.

Formal and inform

al feedback onperform

ance and support for improvem

entIn the case of postgraduates that teach this should include thefeedback of students and that of a m

ore senior academic

manager or m

entor who has had the opportunity to observe the

postgraduate teaching.

Induction and initial training, and supportfor continuing professional developm

ent In addition to standard training provided by their institution,postgraduate teachers should have an induction into discipline-specific teaching practice and an introduction tocourse m

aterials, teaching methods, m

odes of assessment

and feedback and student complaint procedures. There

should be opportunities to develop specific teaching skills such as teaching students w

ith specific support needs,introduction to pedagogic theories and additional languagesupport for international students. All teaching staff should be able to undertake a nationally accredited course in highereducation teaching.

Representation within the institution

and by a trade union Postgraduates that teach should have representation onteaching and learning com

mittees and/or student-staff liaison

groups at department and faculty or school level. Postgraduates

have the right to be an active mem

ber of a recognised tradeunion and to be represented by that union to their institution.

Integration into the professionalacadem

ic culture Postgraduates in em

ployment should be treated on an equal

basis with academ

ic colleagues and given opportunities toengage as professionals w

ith the teaching culture in theirsubject. For exam

ple, postgraduates who teach should be

eligible for teaching awards.

Access to the necessary facilities andresources required to undertake the role These could include printing and photocopying, use of teachingroom

s, stationery and equipment, offi

ce space, a storage facilityand access to online learning environm

ents.

A reasonable balance between

employm

ent and researchPostgraduates benefit from

professional development

opportunities offered by working for their institution, but care

should be taken to ensure that employm

ent does not takeprecedence over research and successful com

pletion of thedoctoral thesis.

Postgraduate employm

ent charter12345

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