Chinas Academic Profession in the Context of Social Transition: Institutional Perspective

1
Chinas Academic Profession in the Context of
Social Transition Institutional Perspective

• Fengqiao Yan
• (Peking University, China)
• Italy Turin
• March 27,2009

2
Outline

• Introduction
• Legal Nature, Administrative System and Academic
  Profession
• Evolution of Personnel System and Academic
  Profession
• Evolution of Organizational Existence and
  Academic Profession
• Conclusion

3
Introduction

• Sociology of profession relations between
  profession and political-economic background.
• Studies of academic profession under-emphasize
  how academic profession is involved with external
  society ( Rhoades, 2007).

4

• Open and ever-changing environment reform and
  opening up policy since 1978 in China.
• Institutional change transition from a planned
  economic system to a market economic system.

5

• (1) Achievement in economy
• GDP RMB364.5 billion (1978) , RMB24 trillion
  (2007) at an average annual growth rate of around
  10.
• Economic share 1.8 (1978) , 6 (2007) .
• World-wide Position tenth (1978) , fourth
  (2007).

6

• (2) Achievement in higher education
• HE reform simplifying governmental organs,
  decentralizing power and allowing universities
  more autonomy.
• Access 4(1980), 15.3 (2002), 23(2007).
• Student size 23 million (China), 70 million
  (World).
• Proportion of enrollment 33 (Altbach, 2007).

7

• (3)Institutional perspective
• How institutional environment influence
  organizational structure and the organizations
  members (Meyer etl. 2007).
• In educational studies, institutional theory
  emphasizes on the deep structure of schools, as
  well as the connection between school and the
  social system (Crowson, Boyd, and Mawhinney,
  1996).
• Few studies on academic profession from
  institutional perspective.

8

• (4) Generic framework government, market,
  organization and profession.

9
(No Transcript)
10
Legal Nature, Administrative System and Academic
Profession

• (1) Legal Nature
• Legal infrastructure important for studying
  academic profession (Enders, 2006).
• Continental Europe civil servant status.
• UK and USA profession independent from
  government (Rhoades, 2007).
• How about AP in China?

11

• It is necessary to elaborate how Chinese
  universities are defined by law.
• According to the General Principles of the Civil
  Law, which was promulgated in 1986 and has been
  effective to date, Chinas institutions can be
  classified into four types enterprise (for
  profit), state organ, public unit and civil
  society (non profit).
• Public unit is a unique organizational existence
  for China, somewhere among the other three types
  with strong public feature( Zhou, 2008).

12

• Legal status for public universities public
  unit.
• Legal status for private universities private
  and non-business, other than any of the four
  types.
• Legal definition makes a significant difference
  for AP in public (84.66)and private universities
  (15.34) in terms of compensation and benefit, in
  favor of the former (Table 1).

13
(No Transcript)
14

• (2) Administrative System
• Two types of universities within public
  university category universities attached to
  central ministries including Ministry of
  Education and universities attached to local
  governments.
• Administrative system makes a significant
  difference for AP in first (16.42)and second
  categories (83.58) in terms of qualification,
  compensation and benefit, in favor of the former
  (Table 2).

15
(No Transcript)
16
Evolution of Personnel System and Academic
Profession

• HE reform was mainly dedicated to the public
  university system.
• AP in Chinese universities has experienced
  fundamental changes since the late 1970s.

17

• Four waves
• (1)In the late 1970s, intellectuals including
  university faculty political status as a part of
  the ruling class.
• (2)In line with the reform and opening up policy,
  academic community began to have more chances of
  international exchanges.
• Statistics show that, 78 of the presidents of
  the universities directly attached to Ministry of
  Education and 62 of doctorate supervisors have
  studied overseas (Hayhoe and Zha, 2006).

18

• (3)There was once significant movement of
  intellectuals from academic community to
  industrial sectors.
• (4)In the late 1990s, academic profession became
  attractive, as faculty working conditions were
  improving and their income going up.
• National strategy rejuvenating the country
  through science and education, 211 and 985
  schemes.

19

• Two examples
• First, per capita income of faculty in a local
  university grew from RMB 977 in 1982 to RMB 5,879
  in 1996, 5 times higher than the original in 14
  years.
• Second, per capita income of the faculty in a
  university directly attached to Ministry of
  Education grew from 22,612 in 2000 to 75,738 in
  2008, 2.3 times higher than the original within 5
  years

20

• Personnel policy in universities includes
  manpower hiring and income.
• One practice found in some universities is to
  combine qualification and hiring together.
• The essential difference between the two rests
  with whether a professional title or a
  certificated specialty is identification or a
  post.

21

• Reform of faculty income system in the past 30
  years has been driven by government policy,
  featuring a shift from title-based fixed salary
  to title-based fixed salary plus
  performance-based salary so as to link faculty
  income with their performance and contribution
  (Qi and Wang, 2008).

22
Evolution of Organizational Existence and
Academic Profession

• (1) Reform of Higher Education Administration
• Decentralization tendency in HE administration.
• In 1994, 367 were under the administration of
  central ministries and 713 local governments.
• In 2007, 111 were under the administration of
  central ministries and 1502 local governments.
• Faculty in central level institutions account for
  16.40, while those in local level institutions
  for 83.60.

23

• (2) Diversification of funding sources
• From 1990s, Chinese universities were forced to
  look to diversified funding due to insufficient
  public budget allocation, including
  university-run business, training courses for
  enterprises, research, consulting and donations
  (Hayhoe and Zha, 2006).

24

• Statistics reveal a remarkable change that the
  of government budget fell to 42.77 in 2005 from
  80.34 in 1996, while the of tuition and fees
  that students have to pay went up to 31.06 in
  2005 from 13.66 in 1996.

25
(No Transcript)
26

• Empirical analysis shows that budget funding in
  different disciplines within one university vary
  remarkably. Scientific research funding and the
  number of excellent faculty are positive in
  science and engineering schools student size is
  an important factor in liberal and social science
  departments budget funding has to do with to
  what extent a department is market-oriented (
  Guo, 2007).

27

• Market factors have much impact on the
  distribution of academic professions in different
  disciplines.
• In the past 20 years, significant changes
  occurred in two disciplines. One, of faculty in
  economics went up from 1.74 in 1980 to 12.78 in
  2007 two, of faculty in sciences and
  engineering went down from 23.89 in 1980 to
  12.11 in 2007.

28
(No Transcript)
29

• (3) Rising Efficiency
• Enrollment was modest in size while faculty was
  relatively big in 1980s and 1990s.
• Enrollment expanded drastically since the 1999.
• Table 5 shows that enrollment to faculty ratio in
  1980 was only 4.6, but grew to 17.28 in 2007.

30
(No Transcript)
31

• (4) Greater Independence in Decision-making
• Public universities are allowed for greater
  independence in decision-making, including on the
  management of faculty.

32

• Independence in faculty management can be seen
  from the following aspects
• (a) Recruitment
• Universities are allowed to decide independently
  on criteria, number, procedure and candidates
  regarding faculty recruitment as long as
  candidates have all the qualifications required
  by Teachers Law and are allowed by public unit
  staffing system.

33

• (b) Promotion and firing
• More universities are now able to decide
  independently on promotions.
• Eligible universities are even allowed to grant
  titles such as special professor and chair
  professor.
• Peking University went through an HR system
  reform in 2003, putting into place mechanisms
  like tenure and up or out.

34

• (c) Facultys income structure
• In addition to government budget, a variety of
  income items, such as post subsidies from special
  government-funded projects (985 and 211
  programs), from scientific research and from
  university-run business, performance-based
  payment and bonus.

35

• Table 6 shows the income structure in a
  university in 2000 and 2008.
• Incomes from government budget and from the funds
  collected by university accounted for 32.60 and
  67.40 respectively in 2000 the figures were
  21.25 and 78.75 in 2008.
• The proportion of income from government budget
  dropped by 11.35 while that collected by
  university grew by 11.35.

36
(No Transcript)
37
Conclusion

• Institutional reform guideline to increase
  efficiency with limited resources.
• Diversified personnel management pattern.
• Universities shifting from largely controlled to
  independence.
• Academic profession shifting from danwei man
  to social man.

38

• Government has played an important role in
  pushing forward the changes in academic
  profession.

39
(No Transcript)