Working at a Chinese university?

[Edith]

A few questions for people who know how universities in China work:

- What sort of people lecture at Chinese universities? (Have they typically worked outside of academia before taking up a lecturing position?)

- Are lectures always in Chinese? Would Chinese students accept a full course being taught in English?

- Do lecturers also conduct research or supervise students to do research, or is lecturing a full-time job?

Thank you!

[gato]

What sort of people lecture at Chinese universities? (Have they typically worked outside of academia before taking up a lecturing position?)

New lecturers currently entering the universities typically are new graduates of doctorate programs.

Are lectures always in Chinese? Would Chinese students accept a full course being taught in English?

Almost all substantive courses (i.e. besides language courses) are taught in Chinese. A few top schools, like Beida and Qinghua, have a select few classes taught in English by foreigner instructors. Which field are you looking at?

Do lecturers also conduct research or supervise students to do research, or is lecturing a full-time job?

Lecturing is supposed to be a full-time job. However, most teachers only teach 4-8 hours a week, leaving a lot of time to do other things, including work for extra income that's not directly related to their university job. Supervising students is included in many's teaching responsibilities, but however many are too busy with pursuing extra-income opportunities to give much attention to supervising students.

[Edith]

Thanks a lot for your reply, gato.

I'm considering looking for a job in China, as a lecturer, but since this is a new idea, I've only just begun looking for information, and I know little about how things work there.

My field is a rather specific field in chemistry/physics.

You're saying I should start looking at good universities then (Beida and Qinghua) if I want to teach in English. (I cannot teach in Chinese.) Do you know where such universities advertise their job openings?

Why do teachers not spend time supervising their students? Is supervising something that isn't valued? (E.g. through the papers that these students produce.) And is the pay so bad that the lecturers need to have a second job?

[gato]

Take a look at these ads for teachers

http://www.chinatefl.com/guangdong/teach/JiayingUni.htm

JiayingUniversity is located in Meizhou City, Guangdong. They were looking for teachers to teach biology and law in English a while ago. Maybe they'd be amenable to someone teaching chemistry and physics, as well.

http://www.tealic.com/cgi-bin/classifieds2/classifieds.cgi?db=aaaschools&website=&language=&session_key=&search_and_display_db_button=on&results_format=long&db_id=1517&query=retrieval

Foreign teachers to teach MATHEMATICS & SCIENCE to junior and senior high school students! Tsinghua Experimental School in Shenzhen.

This next site is for English teachers, but sometimes there would also be an ad looking for teachers in other subjects.

http://www.tealic.com/

You can also try this site, but the links to the job details seem to be broken

http://www.chinatefl.com:81/chinateflen/portal/index.jsp

My field is a rather specific field in chemistry/physics.

Do you have doctorate in the field? To teach at a university, particularly a prominent, you probably need a doctorate. Having prior university teaching experience would also help greatly.

You're saying I should start looking at good universities then (Beida and Qinghua) if I want to teach in English. (I cannot teach in Chinese.) Do you know where such universities advertise their job openings?

You might have to "create" your own job. Email the departments with your resume and proposal for what you want to teach. They might just be interested.

http://www.phys.tsinghua.edu.cn:8080/english/personnel/profile.php?lang=en&id=42

Chair: Professor Zhu, Bang-fen bfz@tsinghua.edu.cn

http://www.phy.pku.edu.cn/introduction/offices.xml

杨玉梅 (Yang Yumei, secretary to the dept chair)

E-mail:yym@pku.edu.cn

And is the pay so bad that the lecturers need to have a second job?

The pay is very low for most university teachers. The nominal pay goes from around 2000 yuan for lecturers just getting started to 5000 yuan to more senior professors. Compare that to the 2500 yuan/month needed to rent a one-bedroom apartment in the university district in Beijng, and you can get an idea of the pressure to take on other jobs on the side. Most foreign teachers, however, are provided campus in addition to the salary, and that takes care of a big part of the expense.

The housing market is particularly expensive in Beijing and Shanghai. Other cities are much cheaper. Since most universities are central government-run and pay about the same salary regardless of region, teachers at universities elsewhere may not feel as much of a pressure to make extra income.

[skylee]

If you want to teach in English perhaps you would consider teaching positions in universities in Hong Kong. I suppose the remuneration packages would be better than in Mainland China.

The Dept of Chemistry of the Chinese University of Hong Kong is currently recruiting Assistant Professors / Associate Professors. You may wish to take a look -> http://perntc.per.cuhk.edu.hk/personnel/jobvacancy.asp?id=04/123(737)/2

And the City University of HK has teaching positions in the Department of Physics and Materials Science -> http://www.cityu.edu.hk/hro/job/a463.htm

Also take a look at the other job opportunities of universities in Hong Kong -

Chinese University of HK

Univerisity of HK

HK University of Science and Technology

City University of HK

There are four other universities in HK - Baptist, Lingnan, PolyU and Institute of Education. You can search to see if they have anything you are interested.

[Edith]

Thanks a lot for these very helpful replies. I am looking at those links. It's good to get an idea of the different universities that are there.

I think gato is right that there isn't much chance of finding a job like this through websites. Most are geared towards people looking for jobs teaching English, or teaching in high schools. So sending e-mails and enquiring is probably the only way.

If all goes well, I will have a doctorate in my field soon (a few months to go). I have university teaching experience, though not much in lecturing (mainly as a teaching assistant and in supervising students.) .

Hong Kong does sound better in terms of jobs and salaries, but I'd prefer the mainland (first because I could choose a Mandarin-speaking region, second because I think if I'm lucky I could have a more meaningful job there, transferring knowledge that isn't there yet -- few Chinese groups publish in my field.)