The casual approach to teacher education: What effect does casualisation have for australian university teaching

Abstract

Universities in many countries are struggling to adapt to the competing forces of globalisation, new managerialism, entrepreneurialism and new technologies and quality agenda demands. Diminishing resources caused by restricted funding and an aging and diminishing academic workforce pose barriers. One solution to staffing shortages is the casualisation of academic teachers increasing causal or sessional teaching staffwho take on significantly increased teaching responsibilities. This article explores the casualisation of university academics and reports on preliminary findings of a small scale sessional teacher development program that used data from a questionnaire on demographics of a small group of 22 sessional teaching staffemployed at an Australian university. Results indicated that sessional staffbelieved they were effective university teachers yet their ongoing development was hampered by heavy teaching workloads, other employment and lack of time. The article concludes that universities, to provide quality outcomes for students, must address these factors.