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New system to make professors do better
All university and college professors and teachers in Guangdong Province will be required to sign agreements with their employers in the near future to become contractual staff members. "That means the `iron bowl' for the province's professors and teachers will be broken," according to an official from the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Education Thursday. Professors and teachers will no longer be staff at their universities and colleges for life, said the official who declined to be named. "According to their contracts, both employers and employees have the right to extend or end their contracts when the agreements expire," he said. But both employers and employees are required to honour the signed contracts, he added. The Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Education will organize a special conference next month to further discuss the details of the new contract system. In addition to education officials, presidents of universities and colleges and senior education specialists and scholars from the entire province will attend the conference in Guangzhou, the provincial capital. Guangdong Province is expected to become the first region in the Chinese mainland to introduce such a contract system to help manage its professors and teachers, the official told China Daily. Under the contract system, the universities and colleges will be required to introduce a competitive, fair and open system in recruiting new professors and teachers starting next year. "And those who are not qualified will be removed from their posts, be required to attend training courses for improvement or even be laid off," he said. The move aims to further improve Guangdong's educational standards for higher learning and encourage professors and teachers to do better jobs in their posts. Guangdong's educational standards have long been criticized for lagging far behind Beijing, Shanghai and many other regions. The official said his bureau has decided to scrap the current unified payment systems for professors and teachers in the province. The presidents of universities and colleges will be given the right to decide the monthly salaries of their professors and teachers, the official said. "Those who perform better will get more pay," he added. Currently, the professors and teachers who have the same technical title usually enjoy the same treatment. To better use the province's limited human resources, the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Education has also planned to build a website within the year to reveal information about professors and teachers in Guangdong's universities and colleges. The special website will help local universities and colleges share teacher resources and promote exchange of professors and teachers. Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong and Macao,has to annually recruit many professors and teachers from outside the province. Guangdong's sustainable economic growth requires a large number of special personnel, the official said. Meanwhile the official said the educational authorities are encouraging professors and teachers to be recruited in more than one university or college. The bureau officials have also decided to take bolder steps in reforming institutions of higher learning incoming months. Administrative personnel will have to sign contracts with their universities and colleges to become contract staff in the future. And the number of Party and administrative management personnel will not be allowed to reach more than 20 per cent of the total staff of their universities and colleges. And the number of teachers and scientific researchers will be required to represent at least 80 per cent of the total, with the number of frontline teachers accounting for more than 60 per cent. |
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