(Dedicated readers will know the sort of thing I'm on about here.)
After about half an hour, she said she wasn't paid for this kind of lengthy consultation.
I'd assumed that university teachers were pretty well paid, and said so.
She gave me a photocopy of her pay slip and shot through.
Now I can see why.
Having a PhD, she gets $449.70 per fortnight for seven-and-a-half fortnights (a semester).Then her contract ends and she gets nothing.
The contract is for two tutorials a week: each 1.5 hours.
But that includes all preparation and marking.
As to preparation: well it takes me a good 6 hours a week to watch the required film(s) and do the (quite long) readings.
As to marking: well, there's 18 students in my group (the norm is 16) and we have 3 assignments each.
So she gets paid two hours a week to mark between 48 and 54 assignments over the semester.
Also has to maintain private internet and phone connections in order to handle student queries because she has no office on the campus.
The nominal rate, according to the pay slip, is that the contact hour (actually 1.5 hours) equals 3 hours, so as to include said preparation and marking.
Then there's a bit ($228.66) chucked in for all her semester's student consultations: face-to-face, by e-mail and by phone.
That's how they arrive at $449.70.
Then there's the tax.
(Don't get me started!)
After tax, the $449.70 becomes $375.70.
That's for 6 nominal hours per week (or 12 nominal hours per fortnight).
So, her hourly rate of pay is $31.30-ish per hour.
And that doesn't include the many hours she must have to work without pay (marking, preparing, etc.).
Not a bad rate.
About equivalent to what I can get for gardening.
(No PhD and 7+ years training required: and every actual hour paid; no limit to 6 hours a week ... )
But could you live on $2,817.75 for every 6 months work?
My hat (well ... beanie) is off to Dr Alice Manners.
She's obviously a charity worker and should not, therefore, have to pay tax.
Or else, she's an idiot and shouldn't be employed by a university.
When I calculate the HECS and/or full fees students are paying for this service, there's an obvious profit ("surplus value", as we used to call it) going to someone.
(A mate in the union tells me this university only cries poor after it's already put aside an expected $56m-ish profit per annum.)
The dark satanic mills may be gone ... but the brightly lit godly ones carry on where they left off.
Like I said before, the rules of the real world are utterly opaque.
Let's hope there's some sport on TV today.
Sledge
