and the wider context of Higher Education

by Ashanthi Ekanayake

The devalued or undervalued role of the English instructor, which has a certain gendered aspect as women outnumber men, and as it is generally perceived as a category, deserves some consideration.

As an Instructor of English, I want this to read like the personal account it is, but I also want it to have some depth and validity as it is an exercise which seeks answers to the questions of systemic injustices and inequities and inequalities we face as professions, and explore the question of how we might overcome the oppression and gain a semblance of agency, though we remain a small group.

To start where my journey began, after a brief stint at the Department of Classical Languages after graduation in the obligatory position of temporary lecturer, I was gratified when I obtained a position as a permanent instructor in April of 2004. When I first discussed my prospects as an Instructor of English with my friend’s mother, whom I thought of as a role model, as she was not just a mom but also an accomplished academic of some renown, she said, “ell if you want to bring up a family and also engage in a profession, this is a good one.

” Warning bells should have rung then, but I then went ahead and secured myself a position. The second time I would hear something about how an English Instructor was generally perceived was when a senior academic, whom I looked up to, made a tongue in cheek comment. “Well,” he said ponderously, “the ELTU was at one point seen as a place for wives, girlfriends and mistresses of academics.” That gave me a very clear indication of how my profession and its category stood in comparison to the others in the University.

Yet I remained quite impervious, until I made the mistake of introducing myself as a “lecturer” to an academic of the medical faculty. He did not mince words in disabusing me of my misperception of my standing in the wider university community. Thereafter I would introduce myself very succinctly as an instructor of English to all and sundry and the be caught up in an explanation of where exactly my position fitted in the university system, a difficult endeavour at the best of times, which turned out to be demeaning to boot, because we were it appeared neither fish, flesh, nor fowl.

But why am I giving unnecessary history and personal history at that? Well sometimes the personal is the universal, so bear with me, I promise not to disappoint you.

I continued on my merry-way working in many of the ELTUs of the university of Peradeniya, and became aware of the many systemic injustices, inequities and inequalities that is part and parcel of the experience. The differences and imparities operated on multiple levels but then I was just biding my time. I was not sure what I was waiting for, but I was busy making a living, working, attempting to become qualified, becoming a parent so on and so forth, basically doing everything a mother and a professional does.

As the most junior member of the permanent staff, I did not see how I was going to change the situation anytime soon. Meanwhile, a promotional scheme had come into effect and gone and many things had happened. I was impervious and had been too busy complaining about being underpaid, exploited and undervalued. Things were changing and I was finding some of these changes and my experiences difficult to grapple with.

Like many positions in the system, mine had no clear job description. There was that frightening clause at the end of my letter of appointment, I was to perform “any and all duties” as directed by my head of department. I was safe while my HoD was fair and human, and the demands being made did not appear at least on the surface unfair. My workload according to my grade was between 14 to 16 contact teaching hours, spread across the five-day working week, except during the intensives when one would teach for longer hours. Still tolerable. So, one continued.

Then, I became aware of a few things. Most academics and many in the non-academic staff, took it as a given that we were of a lower category, and came lower in the pecking order. They would on occasion become quite abusive. As a woman, I was made to feel extremely vulnerable because I was not aware of the system and its intricacies and the apparatuses and mechanisms available for my/ our protection. To use a posh term, I was not aware of my positioning and my sense of agency within the system. To add to this one of my supervisors were given to saying that we as a group were too empowered. Was that such a bad thing? Empowerment meant that we were able to carry out duties in a healthy environment.

Recently, when I spoke of the agency available to me, as an instructor, or lack thereof to a colleague in the temporary cadre, 20 years my junior, recruited having graduated recently, guffawed snidely. Thus, the notion of agency is a concept necessarily denied to those in our category. On occasion, we were treated with extreme violence and derision at august fora such as the faculty boards.

On one instance a colleague complained to me of a colleague of a different category, throwing her out of a classroom and then gesturing towards her attire, and asking if she was indeed a teacher. Many of our rights, and freedoms are circumscribed and the situation it appears will not improve anytime soon. A case in point is the finger scanner attendance system.

Recently, a now discredited academic turned politician who was removed and subsequently reinstated into a certain state committee added to our burdens and we now mark our attendance through the finger scanner system. This is something which has given rise to many disparities within and across the system. His main concern was that there was no proof of the services we had provided, so we now mark attendance which in no way provides evidence about the volume and extent of the work we do. Now, we have a work load and a work day we are constrained in multiple ways. When we ask about how exactly it is implemented, we are not given straightforward answers. A senior colleague asked if our work day was 8.00 am to 4.00 pm, the official to whom the question was posed glibly answered, “I didn’t say that.”

This has given rise to the question of job descriptions and role definitions. According to certain officials, we have not been defined as being teachers. Only lecturers are considered academics and they are exempt from marking attendance as it goes against “tradition.” The most glaring injustice is that our workload and work norms match those of the academic cadre, we have the same qualifications from the same places but not only is our pay lower but the demands made are unjust in the extreme. For an instance, we do not receive research allowances of the sort academics receive but certain ELTDs insist on research.

During intensive courses instructors are forced to work longer hours, on occasion starting sessions at 8.00am and going on until 4.00pm. We are seen largely as beasts of burden. An instance of when we face additional unfairness is when services are commandeered for editing content in (not copy editing/proofreading) research articles and abstracts when the actual appointed the editors according to the publication are others. Those whose duty it is to perform this function send stringent guidelines about editing the research articles and palm off their duties on the English instructors. They receive a commendation and have their names mentioned in the volume as editors. The instructors only receive a letter of acknowledgement of the service performed.

Many Units have now been upgraded to departments so now we have ELTDs and not ELTUs. Thus, there are lecturers in the equation and the differences and inequalities are manifold and magnified at close quarters. The appointed paper setter is an academic but the paper comes to be set by an instructor. In one faculty of the University of Peradeniya, payment vouchers do not mention the academic support category at all.

To add to these injustices on occasion we are left out of certain other benefits of being in the university system, such as the vaccination scheme for university staff.

The webpage of the ELTD of the University of Peradeniya mentions no less person than Theodoric de Souza as its founding Head albeit of the sub department. Who was he? A well-known figure in Bolshevik/Marxian (quaint term found in early articles) trade union action among many other things. Interestingly, the author had a very close call, with the term Bolshevik being included in a reading text as it was a term that Arts Faculty students are “apparently” not aware of. Would “Doric” turn in his grave at this turn of events? Would he be appalled at the way we are being treated. He apparently had keen sense of fair-play and justice according to Jeanette Cabraal, (13th March 2014: Daily Mirror).

Even women academics, aware of feminist ideals and values will on occasion behave in a way which prompts one to question if they indeed practice what they preach. Some of us have Stockholm syndrome we side with our abusers because they have complete control over us and they say this is the best thing for you. This is seen also in a comment made by a senior academic about their relations with the ELTD of their own university at a workshop in the author’s hearing. “Oh! now they have achieved academic status we leave them to their own mad devices. In our opinion they are mad and when they don’t agree with our viewpoint, we drag them by their hair in the direction we want them to go.” This comment was made in 2014.

What if you protest, then you become an upstart and a misfit, your own see you as a scapegoat and blame everything they cannot change about their own situation on that unworthy individual and try their best to oust the person out of the system. They project certain personal traits on that person which are seen as unacceptable and run the individual out with abusive behaviour.

If an institution is truly committed to improving the learning and teaching of English, we need to be aware of these aspects of our profession. So, where to Instructors of English?