Recognising Difference: Providing for postgraduate students

Abstract

At a time when higher education institutions are developing strategies to expand the numbers of postgraduate students, identifying the academic and social needs of full-time postgraduate students is of paramount importance. This article demonstrates that the postgraduate population is not homogeneous, and that academic and social provision should be developed with the differing needs of particular groups in mind. Drawing on the results of a postal questionnaire addressed to all full-time postgraduates registered at the University of Newcastle in the academic year 1995/96, to which 636 students responded, the article makes comparisons between taught and research, and overseas and home, postgraduate students. It also argues that postgraduate students have passed through a significant rite de passage, in graduating at the end of their first degree, and therefore feel they have earned the right to separate facilities and more favourable treatment than the rest of the student population. The implications of this for the development of graduate schools are discussed.