THE role of an academic is one that is still respected, and even sought after, a YouGov poll suggested earlier this year. YouGov argued that, instead of wanting to be actors and musicians, people coveted “an aura of prestige” that surrounds the quiet, intellectual life enjoyed by authors, librarians and academics.

Unfortunately, a report released by the University and College Union (UCU) at the start of the summer revealed the more striking truth about life in our universities and colleges in Britain today.

Romantic notions of secure, stress-free careers bear no resemblance to the life of the 21st-century lecturer, tutor, researcher or lab technician.

It revealed that more than two-fifths (42 per cent) of staff on casual contracts in universities and colleges have struggled to pay household bills.

Over a third (35 per cent) reported that they struggled to meet rent or mortgage demands and an alarming one in five (21 per cent) said that they had struggled to put food on the table.

Around 10 per cent of those quizzed said they could not give an accurate figure on how many hours they worked or how much money they earned each month because it varied too much.

As in so many other parts of the economy, the major problem is the use of casual and zero-hours contracts which mean staff are paid less, stripped of their job security and have fewer opportunities for career development.

The austerity policies of the current government and its coalition predecessor are speeding up processes that are profoundly reshaping our colleges and universities, and leaving many staff with insecure and precarious employment.

Two-thirds of staff who responded to the survey reported that they are on fixed-term contracts — this includes around a third of academic staff, who are often employed on one-year contracts paid by the hour.

At least 75,000 teaching staff are on “atypical” contracts, which mean they not even classed as university employees.

In our further education colleges, currently being battered by huge funding cuts, we estimate that a third of lecturers are employed on an hourly paid or term-time only basis.

What many students probably don’t realise is that most of them are taught at some point, perhaps even for most of their time in education, by people on insecure casual contracts.

Exploitative use of casualised contracts breeds insecurity, anxiety, stress and forces people to work long hours for poor pay.

This has an inevitable impact on the quality of the vital services we provide.

Researchers tell us that the short-term nature of their contracts prevents the conduct of high-quality research as they are forced to direct their projects toward short-term, headline-generating goals.

They also complain about wasting huge amounts of time writing new research bids and regularly losing the knowledge and experience of fellow researchers as their contracts expire.

No matter how dedicated people are, it is simply impossible to sustain the quality that students deserve when staff are forced to deliver hours of unpaid work.

Casual contracts do not include sufficient time to cover the preparation and marking elements of the job, leaving staff to battle through without time to support students or develop courses.

Despite all the flaws in casualised contracts and their proliferation, the government has actually made it even easier for universities and colleges to end fixed-term contracts without sanction.

Fixed-term staff no longer have to be included in calculations of collective redundancies when dealing with unions.

This weakening of their position is a green light to bad behaviour that universities and colleges appear happy to exploit.

With employment law being actively weakened, the collective force of trade unions is needed more than ever.

UCU has prioritised the fight for better jobs and against the casualisation of further and higher education.

As part of our national strategy, we are applying targeted pressure against employers and have won important successes at a local level on the use of zero-hours contracts.

We are calling on the annual TUC Congress to support our efforts in education as part of a strong commitment to fighting the casualisation of the workforce.

Tackling precarious employment needs a united movement standing up for the most exploited and vulnerable in our society.

The government is already gunning for the unions through a series of policies designed to make standing up for people getting a raw deal at work even harder.

People forced onto casual contracts don’t know from year-to-year, term-to-term, or even from month-to-month whether they will have a job or how much they might earn.

It means that people often don’t know how they will make ends meet from one month to the next.

And it means that the big life decisions like buying a house or having children must be indefinitely postponed.

It is a myth that zero-hours and other forms of casual contracts offer a fair and sensible deal for both workers and institutions.

Employers and ministers must stop trying to defend these practices as flexible. The flexibility is not a two-way street and people who want security and a proper contract in return for their hard work should receive it.

Sally Hunt is general secretary of the University and College Union.