Resource: Sessional staff: Overview

Key Terms

Sessional staff are any teachers in higher education employed on a casual, short-term contract, or sessional basis. This may include lecturers, tutors, unit, program and subject convenors, demonstrators and markers (Harvey & Luzia, 2013).

Overview

The sessional staff resource provides a short, one hour orientation for those new to the role of sessional teaching.

As a sessional member of staff, you are integral to the higher education sector as sessional staff provide the majority of teaching across universities and private providers. This reliance on sessional staff is now an established feature of the academic workforce – nationally and internationally. As a member of this workforce, you hold an important role in delivering quality learning and teaching. This role brings with it both rights and responsibilities.

Rights

Your rights as a sessional teacher will depend upon a range of factors, including the industrial award or enterprise agreement under which you have been employed. Therefore, the rights of sessional staff differ across institutions and even within institutions due to the diversity of roles that sessional staff can have (e.g. tutor, demonstrator, marker, subject or program convenor, or lecturer).

 

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