Part-timers
are due full consideration
May
29, 1998
A
recent report concluded that students on masters courses
get a raw deal. They pay high fees, have to share lectures
and seminars with undergraduates; have little supervision
for their research; and end up with low-status degrees. In
short, they are cash-cows for underfunded universities. In
my experience, things are even worse for part-time masters
students.
Last year I completed a part-time masters degree at a
respected university. Poor administration meant that for
every hour spent actually studying, a quarter must have
been taken up with fruitless hassle. The logistics of the
system were ludicrous and, for someone with a living to
earn, expensive.
Consider the scheduling of lectures. We had been assured
that the one-year course could be taken over two years
part-time. In the first year, the core modules, "remedial"
first-year course and necessary third-year introduction to
theory would be covered, with an exam in May. The second
year would be devoted to options (second or third-year
courses with masters level seminars) and supervised
progress towards a dissertation, to be completed by
September. I suppose it was crazy to believe that this
programme could be covered in "one or two days a week".
Still, it was a surprise to find that going to all of the
recommended lectures plus the almost compulsory
departmental seminar in the first term would have required
journeys into central London on all five days of the
working week. The suggestion of "getting another student to
tape the lectures" seemed unrealistic, given that none of
us knew each other and that some of the lecturers' voices
were unlikely to reproduce well. There was no help for it:
I and the other four students who worked cut most of the
introductory lectures, skipped the seminar and tried to
follow the reading lists. Perhaps it was just as good, but
it did not feel just as good.
Undergraduates are charming young creatures, but largely
allergic to print. Masters students are supposed to have
their own, separate seminars. Part-time students could not
fit in with the whimsical scheduling of seminars, so we
were often lumped in with undergraduates. Either entranced
by charm or conscious of the need to keep funding bums on
funded course seats, some staff were reluctant to demand
reports on readings of set texts. Not a few seminars
resembled a bridge game in which all players pass: no
contributions. I worked out once that I was paying Pounds
30 for an hour of conversation less focused than I could
have had with my six-year-old for free. I went home.
It was clear that no one had considered the needs of
part-timers in drafting the schedule. Why could not more of
the lectures be on the same day? Why was the same course at
a different time and day the following term? Schools keep
to a time-table all year, why cannot universities? Why
institute a tutorial system and then drop it?
Then there is the library. There are not enough books or
library staff. You have to queue, maybe for 20 minutes, to
take a book out. Then you queue again, also for 20 minutes,
to return the book. It is an insane waste of time.
Underfunded universities have expanded their graduate
programmes. Do the libraries therefore have more copies of
required readings? You bet your sweet bippy they don't.
They put crucial texts on the "short-loan" system, which
means you take them out for four hours at a time. But
part-time students can't come back every four hours. They
have to work, or pick up children, or stay in for the gas
man. See that clock ticking? That's the money I am not
earning standing in this line.
And where are the books? The teaching staff swore that the
legal maximum of five photocopies of each text is placed in
the library at the beginning of each year. The library
staff could generally locate a couple on the computer. The
odds that any of those was complete and legible were long.
OK, buy the book I but some are out of print. Back to that
line.
Is waiting in line for the photocopier really developing
research skills? Perhaps it would be just too easy for the
university to pay copyright fees and make photocopied,
bound folders to sell to students. Students already pay a
fortune creating illegally copied folders - and they pay it
to the university copy machines.
Of course, there is more than money at stake. Of course,
some of the teaching was brilliant and the material
fascinating. My supervisor was conscientious and dedicated.
But some things hurt. Why should it take eight months and
several requests to get marks for an exam? Why did each of
the five of us have one of our 12 essays lost by a teacher?
Isn't that more than careless? Isn't it callous?
Higher education needs more funding, but not by
short-changing struggling individuals on their hard-won
fees. Universities ought to give part-time students
full-time consideration.
Victoria
Neumark is a masters student in anthropology at University
College London.
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