Media Release: #ValuePostgrads campaign is launched at ANU
Today the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) are launching their national campaign for the year #ValuePostgrads. This campaign aims to bring to Australia the voice of postgraduate students from around the country.
Over the past week CAPA office bearers have been attending postgraduate orientation events to get students to think about what makes them and their work valuable. We are very proud to announce the official Launch at the ANU Postgraduate and Research Students’ Association’s event today.
Postgraduate students perform 57% of the research work hours at universities if they are research students and become our future doctors, educators, lawyers, business leaders and much more if they are coursework student. Yet the postgraduate voice is often referred to as the quietest in the sector.
This campaign will be aimed at showing the higher education sector, the Federal Government and the general public that, while postgrads may speak softly they do indeed carry a big stick that holds the sector up. This stick, in the form of our work, is what powers universities research capacity and will lead Australia into the future through its graduates.
Throughout the year we will be encouraging postgraduate students around the country to tell us why what they do is important through a photo campaign. This simple campaign is expected to have far reaching effects across the sector.
“Currently postgraduate students or often denied income support, they can be forgotten in university and government policy decision making, and have to fund their own research or are treated as the new cash cows,” Said CAPA National President Peter Derbyshire.
“The days of postgraduate study being a trial of surviving poverty and deteriorating mental health needs to end. We are the innovators and the leaders of the changing economy and it is time we were given the support we need.”
With already 10 universities participating and over 100 postgraduate students participating it is clear that postgraduate students can agree on one thing. We are important, we are undervalued and we will not remain quiet.
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For comment: Peter Derbyshire CAPA National President M: 0435 047 817 president@capa.edu.au
https://www.facebook.com/valuepostgrads/
http://www.capa.edu.au/valuepostgrads/
