‘Treadmill’ casual academic image ‘a myth’, bosses claim

Australian universities’ employer association has claimed that a sector survey busts the “myth” of casual academics living hand to mouth while doing the work of full-time lecturers.

The Australian Higher Education Industrial Association (AHEIA) analysis of about 2.3 million hours of casual work, recorded during 2021 at five “sample” universities, found that less than 4 per cent involved lecturing.

The study found that the average casual employee worked 189 hours during the year, equating to one full-time day a fortnight. Many worked less.

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Almost 40 per cent of the 12,000 casual staff had begun working at their universities that year, with another 30 per cent within the previous three years. About 14 per cent had been there more than 10 years.

AHEIA said that the figures offer a counterpoint to harrowing stories of doctoral graduates stuck on rolling casual contracts for a decade or more, in the forlorn hope of obtaining secure employment and the ability to buy homes and start families.

“Only 3.5 per cent of casual academics are lecturing,” said AHEIA chief executive Craig Laughton. “The notion of the treadmill academic who’s being treated pretty badly on a casual contract – the data debunks that myth.”

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) said the AHEIA was peddling a “nothing to see here narrative” amid an “explosion in insecure work”. It said 42 per cent of sessional academic respondents to one of its own surveys had reported performing lectures.

“The majority of our members who are casually employed have been crystal clear they see this job as their career, not a side gig,” said national president Alison Barnes.

She said it was “totally misleading” to average casual academics’ working hours over a year, with many engaged for around 24 weeks across two semesters and only paid for about 60 per cent of their time.

A draft report of the AHEIA survey’s findings concedes that “clear cohorts” of casual academics are working the equivalent of full-time jobs. The proportion could be higher than indicated because the data does not identify people working at multiple universities.

Long-term teaching casuals are concentrated in business, economics, arts and law, the data suggests.

The survey found that about 30 per cent of casual academic hours were spent on tutoring, with another 23 per cent spent on marking, 5 per cent on clinical training and less than 1 per cent on musical tuition or accompaniment. Roughly one-third of casual time was spent on demonstrating and “other” teaching-related work.

Mr Laughton said there was “no dominant stereotype” of casual academics in Australia. “Most casuals fit the profile of short-tenure, low-hours employment during PhDs or coming in from industry for occasional lectures or tutorials,” he said.

Dr Barnes alleged that the association had “cherry-picked” the five unidentified universities. She said there should be a single source of raw employment data “so all the facts are on the table”, but the federal government did not require universities to fully report this information.

Mr Laughton said he expected the full survey report to be available within a month.

He said separate AHEIA benchmarking data across 31 institutions showed that the average university workforce had shrunk by 7.2 per cent between 2011 and 2021. “Everybody is cognisant that people in the sector work hard. Universities are only as strong as the people who work there so you need a really strong working cohort.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com