Sarah Proctor-Thomson: Love isn't enough to sustain our teachers

The trade-off between the ability to pursue a beloved vocation and the worsening work conditions in the tertiary education sector is becoming intolerable. Photo / File

Opinion

COMMENT:

We can all remember that teacher, tutor, or lecturer who inspired us. The educator who went the extra mile.

They did it because they loved their job. They did it because they knew that education changes lives and the world we live in.

Sadly for tertiary education staff that extra mile is not enough any more. They are having to go miles further just to keep up with workloads and demands from managers. And sadly many are just running out of steam.

For the last year I've been analysing the survey answers of 2971 tutors, researchers, technicians, librarians, lecturers, and other workers about the state of the tertiary education sector. Their responses paint a bleak picture of their workplaces and the impact it's having on wellbeing.

There is a continued deterioration of working conditions in the sector. This isn't news – it was shown in the two previous surveys commissioned by the workers in the sector.
However, for the first time we are seeing these pressures and stressors jeopardise the values underpinning quality teaching, learning, and research. Values that mean staff go the extra miles.

The very essence of universities, polytechnics, and wānanga are being challenged because the staff aren't listened to, and because they have deteriorating capacity to offer student support.

Long hours and demands to do more with less mean that nearly half of the academics in the survey said their personal ability to support students had got worse. The feeling is exemplified in comments from a polytechnic academic who said: "I do what I can, but with some work days 12-16 hours in length, I worry about compassion fatigue and burnout. I pride myself on being excellent in this area [supporting students], but in truth time constraints and other work that is a priority (like marking) means that's not always true."

And a third of the survey respondents said student support services had got worse over the last three years.

One academic noted students are suffering: "I find my students are kept waiting for care for several weeks when they need it most. This can mean the student fails or drops out of their courses."

Sadly the trade-off between the ability to pursue a beloved vocation and the worsening work conditions in the tertiary education sector is becoming intolerable for many staff. They don't have the capacity to keep walking those extra miles.

Why has this happened? Underfunding is part of the problem. So, too, is the way managers are operating in the system.

Change is needed if we are to ensure a sustainable tertiary education sector that helps us to make this a better world to live in.

So for the sake of students, communities, and the quality of tertiary education we need people put back at the heart of all we do. This means funding that works for all students and communities, and working conditions that support quality teaching and student support. And with the review of vocational education under way and a new tertiary education strategy being written, we have a window of opportunity to make a change.

• Dr Sarah Proctor-Thomson is a co-author of The State of the Public Tertiary Education Sector and principal academic and programme co-ordinator of Bachelor of Career Development, Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology.