Calls for longer PhD scholarships as teaching loads creep up

UK universities have been criticised for offering PhD studentships with significant teaching loads, often without offering doctoral candidates extra time to complete their studies.

While most PhD students want to gain teaching experience, concerns have been raised over the increased use of “graduate teaching assistant (GTA) scholarships” in which postgraduate researchers are obliged to sign up to hundreds of teaching-related hours each year.

In a recent advert for a number of GTA scholarships, the University of Bristol states that successful candidates will be asked to teach “up to 250 hours a year” on a postgraduate mental health science course “as well as carry out doctoral research”.

The four-year scholarship, which covers research degree tuition fees at home levels, would provide a “stipend plus salary” of £22,841 (updated annually) – about £2,000 above the current UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) minimum stipend of £20,780.

Asked about the PhD studentship, Bristol explained that 85 per cent of this figure was a stipend covering 85 per cent of UKRI’s standard stipend (equivalent to £17,663 a year) while the remaining 15 per cent was a teaching salary of £5,177 that equates to £20.71 an hour and includes payment for lesson and preparation time. With teaching occurring in two 10-week blocks, it would amount to four to five hours a week, it added.

Another institution advertising GTA scholarships is Sheffield Hallam University, which requires students to “contribute up to 180 hours of support for research or teaching related activity per academic year” which “forms part of the scholarship award and there is no additional payment for it”.

Sheffield Hallam said it was “mindful of workloads and impacts on student well-being and PhD completion” and its approach aligned with universities nationally.

UKRI has recently recommended that paid teaching work – including preparation and marking – should “not exceed six hours in any week”, with many university codes of practice also limiting teaching-related activity to no more than 180 hours a year.

Also offering GTA scholarships is the University of Kent, where students are “expected to work for 200 hours per annum” including teaching and related duties such as marking, preparation and examination.

Last year the University of Reading offered a four-year “salary and stipend” package in computer science involving a £14,428 maintenance stipend and a teaching salary of up to £8,245, with candidates told not to work “more than 20 hours per week teaching during semester-time on average”.

Although this type of “hybrid PhD scholarship” offered clarity for PhD students on teaching hours, a University and College Union (UCU) representative said postgraduates may struggle to juggle competing pressures of teaching and research, noting that the rising prevalence of teaching-linked PhDs came “at a time in which many universities are making redundancies or removing regular PGR teaching opportunities”.

“These initiatives result in no adjustments being made to PhD award lengths to compensate for the additional required teaching work, or they result in reductions being made to stipends and salaries so that institutions can cut down on costs.”

Stipends are typically tax-free and the decision to pay part of the award as salary will mean a candidate will incur additional costs.

To recognise the impact of longer teaching hours on PhD students, longer scholarships are needed, the spokesperson added. In the US – where graduate students often balance significant teaching commitments with their doctoral studies – full-time PhDs usually take between four and six years and the doctoral stipend is also generally higher.

Some universities now offer this model, with the University of Manchester’s “postgraduate research teaching associate scholarship” offering a combined teaching salary and stipend of £27,107 with some awards lasting nearly six years.

“UCU is not opposed to the principle of universities offering PhD scholarships that are linked to required teaching roles,” the representative said, but they needed to be “adequately remunerated and properly work-loaded alongside part-time PhD work”.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com