Academic work: a sessionalised future?

Looking back to trends over the past decade, listening to policy announcements and predictions, and considering the structural changes in Australian higher education, it’s hard to avoid concluding that the future of academic work will be predominantly of a precarious nature. This paper reports on case study research examining the extent to which sessional teaching academics are willing and able to join the permanent workforce. Based on an online survey of sessional academics in a faculty of business and law, findings highlight half the sample was willing and able to do this but university systems conspired against them. Without recruitment of sessional academics to replenish an aging and strained academic workforce, the march toward a sessionalised future for academic work will continue.