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Bureaucratized schools

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-14 07:30

A university president can hardly be both an excellent president and professor at the same time. However, the fact that a quarter of the 100 national master professors awarded by the Ministry of Education are either university presidents or Party secretaries seems to attest to just the opposite.

Have these university leaders really done well in teaching at the same time or did the power of their position favor their selection? That only 10 professors without any official position are on the list published last week seems to suggest so.

The fact that some of these university leaders are said to have never taught in nearly 10 years points to unfairness in the selection.

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The ministry started selecting master professors from institutions of higher learning in 2003, for encouraging more teachers to excel at teaching. But, the increasing number of university leaders being awarded such titles goes against the very purpose of the award.

Instead of encouraging more dedication to teaching, the award will actually discourage more teachers from devoting themselves to the vocation. It is not difficult for them to realize that their chances of being selected as master professors are slim unless they hold administrative positions such as the dean of a department or school president or Party secretary.

This is a quite despicable sign. When more and more professors see no hope of getting any credit for the job they have done no matter how hard they work at their teaching, they will lose heart in doing a better job.

In addition, when those who have administrative positions get both credit and economic benefits for what they have never done, an increasing number of teachers will try hard to climb the ladder of hierarchy rather than devote themselves to teaching and research. As a result, there is no incentive for becoming a really good professor.

Institutions of higher learning are under constant attack for becoming increasingly bureaucratized. The frequent eruption of scandals involving professors and even university presidents in cheating and plagiarism point to the unhealthy atmosphere and a lack of enthusiasm and earnestness in academics on the part of professors.

True, some university presidents or Party secretaries used to be very good professors. But once they are promoted to such high administrative positions, they can hardly spare any time for teaching or conducting research. In most cases, one cannot have a cake and eat it at the same time. But quite a number of them want to have both only in nominal sense.

It is the responsibility of excellent university presidents to have best teachers selected for the title of master professors. That is also the way for them to set good academic examples for others to follow in their universities.

By putting their own names on the list, they have not only abused their power but also added to the declining standards of the universities.

(China Daily 09/14/2009 page4)