Everyone doing work for the universities (and anywhere really) should be paid a living wage. This includes Masters and Doctoral scholars, many of whom get paid less than minimum wage. Our system is skewed towards getting research done by paying the workers very little and justifying it with the false promise of that work opening the doors to a stable academic job somewhere, sometime in the future. See the piece below to get an idea of what the realities are for doctoral scholars in Aotearoa New Zealand.

‍This piece was written as part of the Te Ara Paerangi / Future Pathways reform process which has been scuttled by the current government.



The Grim Realities of a Doctoral Student in Aotearoa

A brief narrative of the realities that face a PhD student in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

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