China’s Academic Profession in the Context of Social Transition: Institutional

Perspective

Fengqiao Yan(Peking University, China)

Italy: Turin March 27 ， 2009

Outline

Introduction Legal Nature, Administrative System

and Academic Profession Evolution of Personnel System and

Academic Profession Evolution of Organizational

Existence and Academic Profession Conclusion

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).

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.

(1) Achievement in economy GDP: RMB364.5 billion (1978) , RMB24 tr

illion (2007) at an average annual growth rate of around 10%.

Economic share: 1.8% (1978) , 6% (2007) .

World-wide Position: tenth (1978) , fourth (2007).

(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 (W

orld). Proportion of enrollment: 33% (Altbach, 2007).

(3)Institutional perspective How institutional environment influence orga

nizational structure and the organization’s 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.

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

Chart 1：External factors influencing academic profession development

Government

Organization

Academic Profession

Market

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?

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, China’s 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).

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).

Table 1: Academic Professions in Chinese Public and Private Universities（2007） Public University Private University

Nature Public Unit Non-business Private Organization Number of Universities

1613 295*

Nature Public Unit Staffing Employment-based Staffing

Academic Profession

Number of Faculty 989140 179160

(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).

Table 2: Comparison of Academic Professions in Different Public Universities（2007）

Centrally-attached Local-attached Funding source Central Budget Local Budget Organization

Number of Universities

111* 1502

Compensation Decent Poor Academic Profession Number of

Faculty 162423 826717

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.

Four waves: (1)In the late 1970s, intellectuals including university f

aculty political status as a part of the ruling class. (2)In line with the reform and opening up policy, acade

mic 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).

(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.

Two examples: First, per capita income of faculty in a local un

iversity 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

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.

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).

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%.

(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).

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.

Table 3: Composition of Funding Sources in China’s Higher Education Institutions in 1996,

2000 and 2005. (RMB Million, %)

Government budget Year Aggregate

Budget

Covered

Civil

society and

civilian

contributio

n

Social

donation

Tuition

and fees

others

199

6

32,679.29

（100.00）

26,255.24

（80.34）

22,997.18

（70.37）

56.67

（0.17）

369.61

（1.13）

4,462.37

（13.66）

1,535.39

（4.70）

200

0

91,335.04

（100.00）

53,118.54

（58.16）

50,441.73

（55.23）

659.41

（0.72）

1,518.28

（1.66）

19,261.09

（21.09）

16,777.72

（18.37）

200

5

255,023.70

8

（100.00）

109,083.68

4

（42.77）

104,637.3

4

（41.03）

18,013.154

（7.06）

2,107.96

3

（0.83）

79,192.49.

3

（31.06）

46,626.41

1

（18.28）

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).

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.

Table 4: Faculty number in different disciplines and their proportion 1980-2007 Yea

r

Aggrega

te

Liberal

Arts

Econom

ics

Law Educati

on

Science Engineer

ing

Agrono

my

medica

l

scienc

e

Others

198

0

246862

（ 100.0

0）

56510

（22.89

）

4280

（1.74）

802

（0.33

）

12517

（ 5.07

）

58985

（23.89

）

70028

（28.37）

14655

（5.93）

24473

（9.91

）

4612

（1.87

）

198

3

302919

（ 100.0

0）

72881

（24.06

）

8084

（2.67）

2213

（0.73

）

17191

（ 5.68

）

72535

（23.95

）

85070

（28.08）

17110

（5.65）

27835

（9.18

）

0

（0）

199

0

394567

（ 100.0

0）

100625

（24.50

）

19226

（4.87）

5851

（1.48

）

32299

（ 8.19

）

81943

（20.25

）

108493

（27.50）

18064

（4.58）

34066

（8.63

）

0

（0）

199

5

400742

（ 100.0

0）

85527

（21.34

）

28489

（7.11）

9058

（2.26

）

29139

（ 7.27

）

79564

（19.85

）

114969

（28.69）

16254

（4.06）

37742

（9.42

）

0

（0）

200

0

462772

（ 100.0

0）

108065

（23.35

）

37772

（8.16）

14097

（3.05

）

44416

（ 9.60

）

78904

（17.05

）

127758

（27.60）

15494

（3.35）

36266

（7.84

）

0

（0）

200

3

834342

（ 100.0

0）

216816

（25.98

）

96187

（ 11.53

）

34644

（4.15

）

74222

（ 8.90

）

113307

（13.58

）

222009

（26.61）

22253

（2.67）

54904

（6.58

）

0

（0）

200

7

1168300

（ 100.0

0）

298506

（25.55

）

149337

（ 12.78

）

51518

（4.41

）

97511

（ 8.35

）

141527

（12.11

）

318014

（27.22）

30966

（2.66）

80921

（6.92

）

0

（0）

(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.

Table 5: Size of Enrollment and Faculty 1980-2007

Year Number of Institutions

Number of Associate and

Bachelor’s Candidates （Million）

Enrollment/ Institutions

Specialized Faculty

（Million）

Enrollment/ Faculty Ratio@

1980 675*** 1.143712*** 1694 0.246862*** 4.6** 1985 1016*** 1.703115*** 1676 0.344262*** 5.0** 1990 1075* 2.0627 1919 0.3946* 5.23/ 1995 1054 2.9064 2757 0.4007 8.90 2000 1041 5.5609 5289 0.4628 16.3 2005 1792 15.6178 7666 0.9658 16.85 2006 1867 17.3884 8148 1.076 17.93 2007 1908 18.8490 9878 1.1683 17.28

(4) Greater Independence in Decision-making

Public universities are allowed for greater independence in decision-making, including on the management of faculty.

Independence in faculty management can be seen from the following aspects:

(a) Recruitment Universities are allowed to decide independe

ntly 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.

(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.

(c) Faculty’s 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.

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%.

Table 6: Income Structure of Faculty in a University in 2000 and 2008 RMB Million, %

Income Source 2000 2008 65.32 177.43 Government 32.60 21.25

135.07 657.58 University 67.40 78.75

200.39 835.01 Aggregate 100 100

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.

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

System: planned System: market

Government: tightly controlling Government: loosely controlling

Market: no role Market: fundamental role

Organization: danwei type, with little autonomy Organization: professional bureaucracy type,

with more autonomy

Academic profession: danwei man Academic profession: social man

Chart 2： Academic Profession Evolution in China

Government

Organization

Academic Profession

Market