Professor 'status' in China

PROFESSOR STATUS IN THE US AND CHINA Name Institution Affiliation Course Date of Submission The culture of Chinese has deeply engrained dedication to learning its citizenry by placing high premium on books learning and formal education than other civilizations. Education in china was placed as a path to government career since they were determined to bureaucratic appointment, a path to prestige and authority by enabling men of humble birth to rise to the top. This is unlike in the US because leaders wished to develop well-rounded citizens but there were other who advocated for more practical goals of learning modern science and technology to reform the country in countering western imperialism (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). Attaining the status of a Professor, one must sustain a distinguished track record of scholarly achievement within one university and academic discipline to be promoted from an associate professor. The position of professor is usually tenured but not for private and church affiliated institutions (BISO, 2010). The status of a professor is the highest of the standard academic ranks with advancement past the rank of professor involves administrative duties. There is no mandatory retirement age in this occupation and full professor in the US is around 55 years with only few people attains the position before attaining that age. Full professor earn on average 70% more than the associate professor in the same institution but those in private institutions earn less (Kim, 2012). Promotion of professors comes with increased administrative responsibilities, which sometime reduces teaching or research expectation. The salaries of education professor in the US and that of china differ significantly in that a professor in china is among the lowest earners (Jaschic, 2012). Compensation of professors in the US in addition to those in senior levels have higher earning in terms of average faculty salaries based on purchasing power. The US has been ranked in the fourth position globally in regard to professor compensation (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). Studies regarding faculty compensation have indicated that there is a wide comparison with the highest salaries being paid in western developed nations. The research which employed the methodology based on the “purchasing power parity index” (PPP) where the salaries reflected what it takes to purchase similar products in different countries (Jaschic, 2012). This enabled countries with relatively low salaries in pure finance and with low cost of living to be competitive with countries whose base salary is much higher. The comparison using PPP made it possible for countries such as South Africa to appear above the US (Guttenplan, 2012). The numbers used were based on full time position while excluding the adjuncts and this made the comparative position of the US higher while China fared poorly in the comparison of the study (Jaschik, 2013). Research has indicated that there is an increasing divide of faculty academics into categories of brain drain and brain gain. This is because countries with more resources siphon off academic talents from the poorer countries (Jaschic, 2012). This is the case in china, which has seen many of its faculty academics move to the US to acquire more education and higher compensation (Dehaas, 2012). The wide gap between professors at the top research universities and those working in colleges devoted mainly to teaching who constitute a majority of the academic work force relocate to the US to further their education in an effort to source more compensation. With all currencies converted to US dollars using the PPP based on a set of items in the US, the salaries in these countries with the country’s average per capita GDP provides an avenue on how professors are paid in their respective countries (Kreuter, 2012). The average salary is determined on whether is sufficient to support the middle-class standard of living. With respect to purchasing power, newly hired academics in china earn 259 dollars per month compared to their colleagues in the US, earning 405 dollars per month (Jaschic, 2012). The salary for a full professor in china stands at 1,107 dollars while in the US is at 7,358 dollars (Guttenplan, 2012, and Brown, 2013). Though it is not possible to track the actual academic pay unlike for teachers, preliminary reports indicates that there are problems in eliciting the actual compensation for academics because the subject is a taboo. China academic institutions perform poorly in terms of compensation with respect to international rating because the institutions were traditionally based on securing power and authority in their unitary government. In an effort to compete with the developed states, china has established many higher education institutions in addition to offering compensation to match other recognized institutions (Guttenplan, 2012). Numerous factors differ in these countries because in the US, the government does not control the higher education institutions while in china, the government controlled these institutions and professors were employees of the government. This created the disparities of compensation of a professor since it affected the higher education sector (Hays, 2006). The economic status of professors in china started to change in the 80s after the Chinese government moved away from controlling higher education institutions. This analysis is examining other issues that include fringe benefits and the nature of employment contracts and the existence of tenure. There are financial consistencies in these countries because the middle class is open to academics. The academic profession in the US does all since professors are treated as the key element of knowledge economy (Chen, 2003). The entry level of a professor in china was not possible because academics were retained in their institutions and promotion was through the period the academics worked in the institution (Altbach, Reisberg, Yudkevic, Androushchak, & Pacheco, 2012). The entry level salaries for assistant professors and those of full professors in theirs fields differed significantly with china having the greatest gap between the junior and senior pay levels. There are many factors that influence faculty salary in china such as the number of years worked, academic field, rank research grants and seniority. Moonlighting was a common survival strategy in china as professors consulted on the side as this was the only way for them to support their families (Chen P. , 2006). In order to supplement their salaries, professors usually do extra teaching in private institutions to compensate their wage, and this will eventually make the students to suffer. Therefore, there is a hidden truth regarding professors’ compensation since there is some faculty that are paid handsomely thereby possessing wealth while others hover in poverty line (Kingkade, 2013). The use of part-time teaching usually pays on the basis of hour or course without benefits has become prominent in the US as people realizes the likelihood of getting salary increment is low thereby bargaining as high as possible (Jaschic, 2012). China has been focused much because of its higher education in recent years since it abandoned its traditional education system and moved rapidly in expanding capacity and expertise in its university systems. The Chinese universities have started to offer western style salaries to home recruited experts which is a small share compared to its academic labor pool which is not possible to influence Chinese totals which makes it not able to attract researchers and thus, had to deviate from salary norms making universities to be independent (Rhoads & Hu, 2012). This deviation has seen china outsourcing professors from overseas in an effort to upgrade its higher education institution to global standards. Many professors are coming from the US where most of them were citizens of china and this would in turn see US unable to attract young talents in future. The top universities in china have engaged in multimillion dollar program of headhunting in an attempt to have senior academics from the US and UK (Aiyar, 2006). The salary is gong for about 100,000-200,000 dollars per year for professors in field of business research field. This salary offer is very competitive and is luring faculty fro m overseas to take positions in Chinese universities. There has been significant investment by the Chinese government on its universities since the early 1990s concentrating mostly on its top institutions (Huang, 2003). The Chinese government has launched the 1000 talent program to recruit senior academics from around the globe targeting those born in china and have reached the professor level. This has offered success as many professors are relocating from the US to china with estimate of about 7,000 to 30,000 between the year 1999 and 2005 (Catcheside, 2011). The determination of Chinese government on upgrading its higher education institutions is paying off because there is increased number of scientific research papers that the Chinese academics have published and could outstrip those from the US in near future (Mok, 2000). There are other efforts of creating quality universities in china apart from the top ten because of the increased number of enrollment from one million to five million with an estimate of about six million students to be graduating from Chinese universities and increasing over the years to come. More than 38% of professoriate holds a doctorial degree and most of those academics with PhD degrees hold foreign PhD degrees (Zhao, 2007). This is because good education background calls for promotion that in turn means increased salary. There is an immense demand for academics who can teach especially in science and business field due to the explosion of student numbers (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). This is evidence that the Chinese institutions of higher learning have extended their recruitment far beyond the academic elites that was the object of the 1000 talent program. The program hopes to continue luring overseas academics in the field of research and teachers. This recruitment drive is seen to affect institutions in the US largely because china has an increasingly attractive preposition to junior academics with the hope of rising in the academic career ladder (Lu, 2006). The second tier of western universities will suffer because those who do not get a chance to get to the top tier will have to decide on going to china. This is the start of the western countries institutions impetuous decline as a destination for the best research academics because the ambitious young talents are destined to Chinese universities. Although china is being destined to become a superpower in higher education, there is unwillingness to take risk which could hamper high quality research since researcher are under pressure to produce expected research within a short period of time (Aiyar, 2006). China has continued to provide a creative environment to measure up to the US prestigious institutions. This is because research funding in china which is set to hit 2.5% of the GDP in future to be spent on applied research. This is unlike the US, which uses about 15% that goes to research funding which goes on blue skies research while china uses 5% only (Miao J. , 2010). The Chinese faculty salary in higher education institutions varies because university autonomy in tapping different resources. This makes some institutions to do better than others do financially. The complexity of faculty salary and remuneration in china has many issues since it is not possible to get data regarding fringe benefits to determine how academics are paid. The average income in the education sector is below average compared to the US. Professors are supposed to be the troops of the global knowledge economy and should be compensated handsomely to be motivating in their work. Salary of professors in China There has been an upsurge in higher education enrolment across the Asia Pacific region. As of 2010, the growth rate in enrollment increased by 28 percent resulting to an increasing demand for professors (Sharma, 2010). China is one of the countries in this region that has devoted its education system to providing lower priced higher education as compared to the US (Morgan & Wu, 2011). For this reason, it is seeing high numbers of students continue to enroll in Chinese Institutions. It has also contributed to an increase in enrollment and demand for professors. China has been attracting many professors in the west particularly those in their first years and those wishing to advance to professor levels from being senior lecturers (Yang, 2009). China’s institutions are using competitive remuneration to attract some of the most highly qualified talent. It is reported that recently, top universities in China have been offering attractive benefits to the recruited returning Chinese faculty and foreign academics from Australia, Europe, Canada and the US (Janette, 2011). They have been offering additional benefits such as the coveted city residence permits, government paid temporal luxury accommodation, tax breaks, support staff and research funds (Sharma, 2010). There is high competition among Chinese institutions of higher education in attracting the best professoriate around the globe. The high competition is seen by assessing the variance by which the different institutions pay their academics. Institutions are upgrading the salary packages because they are aware that professoriate compensation impacts the quality of academics and research productivity (Jianmin, Li, & Wang, 2009). They understand that there is a need to attract the best academics in order to drive national innovation and prosperity for the nation’s economic and social development (Altbach, Reisberg, Yudkevich, Androushchak, & Pacheco, 2012). The faculty in China is structured to receive salaries which include fixed and flexible portions. They are paid using funds drawn from both the government and the institutions. All professors within the same grade or level in the same rank receive the same fixed salary. The only differences in pay for those in the same rank and level occur due to differences in the regions where they are located with reference to the cost of living (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). When the member of faculty navigates upwards in rank, they receive a larger margin in salary as compared to when they move up in levels. Their salary is paid in full unless the faculty member fails to complete tasks assigned. For instance when the professor fails to teach the required number of courses he is not be liable to receive the full pay. This indicates China’s professoriate compensation plan runs on merit. This is characteristic of the globalized learning and academic approach adopted by the Chinese government (Shen, 2008). Professors’ tenure had historically been on permanent basis. However, in 1985, the Chinese government through the ministry of education established policies that eliminated the previously existing guaranteed permanent employment. The government enacted a new arrangement that brought about term contracts and merit pay (Gonzalez, Liu, & Shu, 2012).Through the new arrangement the government has given the institutions a mandate to make decisions about professors’ contracts and pay. The institutions have also been allowed to set the criteria for appointment and promotion in consistency with the national higher education regulations (Gonzalez, Liu, & Shu, 2012). The professors’ salaries are composed of two components namely a fixed component and a flexible component. The Chinese government is responsible for paying the fixed portion of the salary while the respective institutions are responsible for the flexible section of the salary. The institution determines and pays the flexible portion of the salary (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). The institutions allocate the amount on the basis of factors such as performance and availability of resources. This portion may or may not include living adjustments, compensation in terms of the number of courses taught, and various bonuses such as research grants for publications. The institutions may provide allowances for certain holidays such as the National Day and Teachers Day. They may also compensate for participating in educating the public through adult education and correspondence courses (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). The government portion is the same for all professors in the same rank despite the discipline taught. The portion paid by the institution is mainly determined on performance basis. The performance bonuses are different in different universities in China and this is the main reason for the great disparities in faculty compensation across different universities in China. The flexible portion of faculty pay is also dependent on different factors such as professor’s involvement in consulting; researching business companies, adult education, service, teaching and research. These factors contribute to individual professor’s performance rating and thus used to determine their pay (Gonzalez, Liu, & Shu, 2012). This makes the pay to be unsecure as it can drop dramatically with dips in performance indicators. Additionally, professors’ salaries are rendered unsecure by factors such as when they are found guilty of academic malpractices and are slapped with harsh consequences that have a negative impact on their earnings. Another threat to their salaries comes from the fact that the professors require to undertake continuous research and publications every other year to maintain their salaries (Gonzalez, Liu, & Shu, 2012). The professors thus work aggressively to reach these targets to avoid having cuts on their salaries. They also do so to be able to access assets such as homes and other personal development materials characteristic of the consumer middle class society. The pay by the institutions is most of the times higher than what is paid by the government. It is reported that the institutions now pay up to sixty percent of the professors’ annual salaries (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). However, other factors influence the difference in pay in different institutions. One of those factors is the institution’s affluence. Those institutions that are more affluent tend to have more resources and thus the flexible salary portions for professors in those institutions tend to be higher than for those in less affluent institutions. Other variations are noted where sometimes lower rank professors may earn more than higher ranking professors. This occurs because the lower ranking professors such as associate professors may earn extra amounts as rewards for excellent performance. However ordinarily, the professors earn higher pay than the associate professors (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). The salaries have a component that takes into consideration the cost of living in the base pay for those institutions situated in the city and for those situated in the rural areas. For instances those situated in the Shanghai require more base pay to cater for the higher costs of living in the city. Those institutions in the city have the advantage of diversified sources of revenue. One of the ways in which these institutions diversify their services is by incorporating entrepreneurship. They offer consultation services and undertake research projects. The proceeds from the entrepreneurial activities are channeled to the faculty. Another way in which institutions pay their professors more is when it charges higher fees in certain disciplines such as medicine and law. The professors in the same ranks in the same university may earn different salaries as a result of differences in disciplines. Professors teaching humanities disciplines earn lower salaries than those in medicine and law (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). Despite the dynamics in having the government and the institutions having a stake in professors salaries, professors and other faculty members still receive relatively low salaries as compared to other industries. For instance, a report released in 2005 indicated that faculty members are ranked fourth in earnings as compared to those working in other sectors such as the financial, retail and wholesale and information software sector among others (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). The study focused on all the staff engaged in the education sector. However deeper scrutiny indicated that the professors earned $6,318 annually on average and even though this amount may be low for the American counterparts, it is reported that this earning is more than twice what others in China’s education sector earn. Their earnings are higher than the average for those in the finance ($4,896) and IT ($5991) (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). Indeed going by the rising competition for qualified academics in the globe, there is need for the government and other stakeholders to increase the pay for the professors and avoid the risk of brain drain. Scarcity of Professors in China Chinese universities have been under pressure to assume world class status. Two Chinese universities had been among the top 10 universities in Asia in 2009 but had been moved to 15th and 16th place in 2010.One of the cited reasons for the decline in ranking was because of the high student to teacher ratio. Had this problem been solved by hiring more professors, it was probable that the two universities Perking and Tsinghua universities would have maintained their position among the Top Ten Asian Universities (Ward, 2010). Although there were other reasons for the poor ranking such as lack of world class facilities and technology and suppression of academic freedom, it is important to note that scarcity of professors is a significant problem in Chinese universities (Ward, 2010). China has been registering a decrease in the number highly skilled workforce across all sectors. Large numbers of students travel abroad for higher education but only a few of them return to China. At the end of 2011, the number of Chinese students studying abroad had reached 2,244,100 and only thirty six percent of them returned to China. This causes China to be at a loss in comparison to countries in the developed world such as the US and Europ...