Arena symposium: teaching assistants

Abstract

This paper outlines the teaching experiences of postgraduates in British Geography Departments. Based on a survey of 58 departments, it discusses the teaching and training environment in which postgraduates work, and identifies the problems which are emerging from the growing tendency to employ graduate students as teachers. The general absence of formalised training systems for postgraduate teachers emerges as an acute problem, particularly given increasing pressures on teaching quality. This clearly has important implications for teaching Geography in higher education, and impacts not only upon the postgraduates themselves, as they endeavour to juggle the mounting burdens of higher teaching loads alongside pressures to complete and publish, but also upon the quality of undergraduate teaching provision. The issues raised also have important policy implications for institutional managers who, it is argued, must clarify their strategy towards the use of postgraduate teachers and provide appropriate institutional support structures in order to enhance teaching quality for all concerned.

Keywords:

• Postgraduate teachers
• employment quality
• training policy