Teachers at the Monash Arts Faculty are under pressure over the proposed new cuts by the University. While not yet confirmed, Monash has proposed changes to expand class sizes to over 70 students, reduce consultation hours and cut staffing levels, which could result in greater job insecurity for staff.
The Australian government introduced new labour laws in August 2024, with the aim of reducing the casualised workforce of universities. Called the ‘closing loopholes’ law, the original intent was to provide a more secure pathway for casuals to gain permanent employment. It prevents employers from using casual contracts to avoid giving their employees benefits. This law applies to the 2.5 million casuals in the Australian workforce, but the impacts for the university sector are huge.
Instead of placing casual staff into permeant positions, Monash University has decided to let many of its casual staff go. From Arts to IT, this is affecting every faculty. Most casual staff will not be rehired in 2025, placing more pressure on the already over worked full time staff.
In 2023, Monash University employed over 10,475 staff total, with over 1,617 in casual employment and 3,952 on fixed term contracts. Over the last five years, Monash has kept a steady employment of casuals and full-time ongoing staff.
However, over the last 12 month period from December 2022 until December of 2023, Monash’s hiring of casuals fluctuated. The university only hires casuals during the academic year, as een in the increase at March, only to end their contracts at December. This leaves staff to only have secure employment for 9 months of the year.
NTEU Protests:
While the levels of overall employment may be steady at Monash, it’s casual employment rates certainly aren’t. With this level of uncertainty already, it’s expected to only get worse with the new changes.
On the 7th of October, the Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) held a rally to fight against the proposed changes. Arguing to keep class size ratios at 20 students to 1 teacher, secure jobs, and genuine consultations, they take Monash to task to improve staff working conditions and student learning outcomes. The protest had a large turnout of both students and teachers, starting at the Monash Campus Centre and ending at the Chancellery. Alongside NTEU leaders, the students also spoke at the protest, being represented by Chloe Ward of the Monash Student Association.
The implications for the Monash School of Languages
One area that is getting affected the most by these changes, is the Monash Arts Faculty. With small class sizes in its tutorials, the focus is on students. Having a student to teacher ratio of just 20:1, allows a small intimate group of students to have proper one on one support from the teaching assistants. Compared to other faculties like science, which can have class sizes of up to 90 students, the Humanities has always had a more personalised experience. Within the arts faculty, the Monash School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics will be drastically affected. Language learning is a challenge. Learning to speak, read and listen to a foreign language requires time, effort and help from highly specialised staff.
Choosing to go anonymous due to fears for their position, a unit coordinator from the Arts Faculty, going by Arts Coordinator A, spoke to me about what this would mean for the teaching staff if these changes went ahead.
“Existing staff will be overburdened by increased workloads as they are forced to assume the teaching and administration tasks that are currently performed by sessional staff. Academic staff are already largely overworked, and increasing their workloads will lead to burnout and, perhaps more importantly, a sustained feeling of resentment towards the institution and leadership.”
“We have already been instructed to cut units in an effort to reduce the workloads of remaining academics. I will not be able to offer my elective to students next year. This impoverishes our unit offerings for students who will be more restricted in terms of what units they can enrol in.”
It’s not just unit coordinators that are on the line, casual tutors, some of whom have PhD’s and years of experience have their jobs on the line. Unit Coordinator A speaks highly of the TA’s under them.
“TAs are highly passionate, professional and competent colleagues that the University has undervalued for a long time. They certainly do not perform this important work for the financial benefit or for the prestige. I am concerned for them in terms of their ability to find employment that corresponds to their very specific and sophisticated skill sets, and for the existing academics who will be obliged to fill in the holes that will be left through a mass TA exodus.”
Changes to the size of classrooms could drastically alter the progression of students language learning. As Arts Coordinator A points out, these changes could lead to students not developing the proper level of proficiency in their chosen language.
“Large class sizes are not conducive with most learning ecosystems and especially not with foreign language learning which requires face-to-face interaction. You cannot learn a language effectively if you do not have the opportunity to actively practice it and, most importantly, to make mistakes. An academic in a class of 70 students will not have the time to perform the crucial small-scale work required for students to advance in language proficiency whether they be at Introductory or Proficient levels.”
First year student Simon Tawfiq, decided to continue his French studies at university alongside his biomedicine degree. He notes that throughout the last 6 years of his French studies, his classes have always been no more than 20 students.
“I have seen the firsthand stress that language teachers endure. Due to the high demand for language teachers, there are usually 4 or more classes dedicated to 1 teacher.”
He goes on to detail how increasing the size of language classes to 70 students will greatly impact the pressures on casual staff.
“I’ve already seen in my first year of university the little time that teachers can dedicate to students, and this will only get worse as class sizes increase. In fact, the scarcity of teachers may even lead to language units being nullified. For both students and teachers, this won’t be fair.”
After the last major Arts cuts at Monash in 2021, where over 10 honours courses were discontinued, these latest staffing changes could see the Faculty further remove study options. Arts Coordinator A highlights how modern-day Australia continues to attack the Humanities, and is worried about the future impacts on our society.
“I long for the day when we will finally understand as a collective society that the Humanities are crucial for fostering critical thinking, empathy and (inter)cultural awareness and that the lack of these values plays a role in sustaining much of the violence currently being perpetrated throughout the world. In the era of intercultural war and seemingly endless human rights abuses, climate change and gendered violence, investing in the Humanities is more important than ever. “
