The week in higher education – 8 July 2021

Doctoral students should not be asked to teach unpaid at universities in the UK, even if they have a fully funded bursary, according to a new manifesto demanding that higher education institutions treat “postgraduate researchers as staff”. Under proposals from the University and College Union, postgraduate researchers should be given terms and conditions “comparable” to those of employees, while there should also be an end to any requirement to deliver unpaid teaching as part of a scholarship, bursary or stipend – which, in the last case, is normally just under £16,000 a year if funded by a UK research council, similar to a minimum wage salary. “We want to be paid fairly for the work we do, have access to the same rights and benefits as staff and be adequately supported to do our research,” said Alex Kirby-Reynolds, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Sheffield who has campaigned on the issue. “We aren’t asking for much; and, following the pandemic, it’s time that universities stepped up.”

It’s fair to say that Boris Johnson has had a busy 18 months, with divorce, marriage, fatherhood, a near-death illness and a global pandemic preoccupying his time in office. That doesn’t mean, however, that his very delayed biography of Shakespeare – for which he was paid a £500,000 advance in 2015 − isn’t still moving along, amid reports that several historians were approached to work on the book, raising speculation that the much-anticipated tome is being ghostwritten. According to one Shakespeare expert approached by the prime minister’s agent, they had been invited to “supply Mr Johnson…with answers to questions about Shakespeare”, which the former journalist would then translate into his own less-scholarly prose. “The originality and brilliance, his agent assured me, would lie in Mr Johnson’s choice of questions to ask and in the inimitable way in which he would write up the expert answers he received,” said the Shakespeare scholar, who declined the opportunity.

Town-gown relations have taken a plunge in Cambridge after one of its most famous colleges announced plans to ban swimmers from bathing at a popular beauty spot. Days after King’s College, Cambridge said it would bar people from entering the river at Grantchester Meadows – which is owned by the college but has been used by the community for centuries – almost 20,000 people have signed a petition decrying the move. “Closing off use of the river along this stretch will shut down traditions dear to the people of Cambridge, and choke our connection with its beautiful natural surroundings,” reads the petition, which has been signed by a number of university dons. In its defence, King’s said it recognised the importance of river swimming but could not ignore the “large gatherings of individuals entering the River Cam under the influence of alcohol and other drugs, and subsequently requiring emergency medical assistance”.

A new cohort of “students” are signing up for South Korea’s notoriously tough college entrance exam – but it’s not because they want to apply for university. According to local media, twentysomethings are allegedly taking advantage of a government scheme that aims to vaccinate all students heading to the college scholastic ability test (CSAT). Those willing to pay the CSAT exam charge of W47,000 (about £30) will also receive a Covid vaccination shot, allowing them to jump the lengthy queue for jabs that has meant that just 7 per cent of Korean adults are fully vaccinated. “Some college students are registering for the mock CSAT in order to get the vaccine ahead of others, so that they can enjoy their leisure time and nightlife without any constraints,” said Chang Kim, executive director of the Korean Association of Human Resource Development.

New rules to stop students hugging or even patting a friend on the back without “explicit verbal consent” have been criticised. According to MailOnline, new directives from the students’ unions of SOAS and Goldsmiths, both part of the University of London, will require people to ask in advance before initiating any physical contact on their premises or face being turfed out by security. Although the rules, which would apply to party nights hosted by the unions, are designed to protect “physical and emotional boundaries”, the “safer spaces policy” will do nothing to tackle abuse, said one critic. “All it does is empower control freaks and inhibit young people from behaving normally,” said Frank Furedi, a professor at the University of Kent.