by Róisín Kilroy
Faced with ‘meagre additional pay’, and dramatically reduced lecturing time, postgraduate researchers from University of Galway, marched in protest through the campus on Thursday, October 5.
Braving the day’s blustery weather and armed with signs that said, ‘PhDon’t’ and ‘University of Greed’, the university’s postgraduate researchers shared stories of financial insecurity, working multiple jobs to afford rent and being treated like ‘employees when it suits, and students when it suits’.
Speaking to the gathering crowd, PhD researcher, Chris Stewart, said, “We are the lifeblood of institutions of higher education, performing research, teaching classes, marking assignments, leading fieldwork and many additional activities necessary for the functioning of these places of learning.
We aspire to better ourselves and society through the pursuit of the highest possible degrees and we are relegated to a purgatory where we are students with convenience and staff with convenience with no stability or basic standard of living.”
Graduate Teaching Assistant
A large part of the grievances shared by the PhD researchers centre around the conditions of the Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA ) contract, which was introduced in 2022, resulting in a reduction in teaching hours, pay and opportunity for postgraduate researchers.
Under the GTA policy, a full-time registered student can undertake an ‘average maximum of 20 hours per week (teaching support and associated duties )’ and up to a ‘maximum of 250 hours per year’. Prior to the introduction of the policy, PhD researchers had been delivering lectures to students, but now it is specified that ‘a GTA should never be hired to provide lectures’, instead they are contracted only to provide ‘teaching support, including seminars and tutorials’, and ‘demonstrating practical skills in a laboratory/field setting’.
For Rania Muhareb, as member of activist group, Postgraduate Workers’ Organisation Ireland (PWO ) and a PhD researcher from the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Galway, the introduction of the ‘problematic’ GTA policy highlights the lack of recognition of the work of PhDs.
“We are calling for this policy to be revised because it remains quite problematic. Teaching preparation is not adequately paid. Marking in some instances is not paid either, and some work you can ‘volunteer’ to do for free, and this is all according to a policy that claims to have been put in place in order to address unpaid teaching. That is not the case, we are hearing from postgraduates across the university, that in some departments, they are still teaching for free.
“We are calling for recognition of worker status and all accompanying rights, which includes sick leave and parental leave, a living wage and ultimately the increase of PhD stipends, which was recommended in the national review of PhD conditions conducted by the Department of Further and Higher Education.”
Additional concerns for international students
Given that a large number of PhD researchers in University of Galway are international students, the GTA policy adds an additional element of insecurity to an already financially fraught time. For first year PhD researcher, Amanie Issa, the pressure of having to pay a significant fees for visas, private health insurance as an international student has made her question her decision to come to Ireland.
“In orientation for all first year PhDs, they start the day by saying that we are the most important people on campus, and it is quite annoying because I don’t feel like we are ‘the most important’. They emphasise that we come up with that we come up with research and contribute to the future generation, but then act in a way that doesn’t make us feel important.”
Concerning on a number of levels
For university lecturer, Paul Michael Garrett, who was one of the many to come out in support of the PhD protest, the situation is ‘concerning on a number of levels’.
“What we have seen in Ireland, and globally, is perhaps an increasing exploitation of postgraduate labour, with work being pushed onto their shoulders and being inadequately renumerated, and I think this is concerning on a number of levels. Just to mention briefly the impact on their mental health, as well as being in the situation where prices are escalating.
“The second aspect which I think is deeply worrying, I say this not only as a member of staff for 20 years but also as a member of the Royal Irish Academy, we need to be protecting our new scholars. We need to see them flourish. That is the way that disciplines develop, and if they are not treated well here or elsewhere then that culture, knowledge and production will go elsewhere.”
