Richard Neale
University of Glamorgan’s Ethics Committee and sent to the
programme organisers.
Organisation of the study
My visit was managed by a member of the Bit international
office, who attended all the meetings and translated some
of the conversations (many of the people I spoke to had quite
good English but not all of them). The semi-structured inter-
views were held with a wide range of participants and the
key issues that arose are discussed in more detail.
Subjects of the meetings and discussions
Introductory meeting: Vice President for Academic
Affairs; Director of the International Office; Director of
Human Resources; Deputy Registrar; Deputy Director of
the Development & Planning Office
School of Information Science and Technology
School of Mechanical and Vehicular Engineering
School of Management and Economics
School of Art and Design
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Final workshop in Beijing: all participants came together
for review and discussion
All the participants of the programme attended the final
workshop and there were some excellent discussions. One
real benefit was the opportunity to pose questions that had
arisen during my meetings at Bit to a broad and very knowl-
edgeable group of senior Chinese academics, which helped
me to crystallise my conclusions.
Summary of the discussions
The four research questions posed for this study were
addressed in the order stated.
1. What are the legal, formal and
institutional requirements?
The UK requirements for degree-awarding powers and uni-
versity title are reflected in the extracts from the relevant QAA
document given above. I was unable to acquire any compa-
rable documents relating to similar requirements in China and
no-one I spoke to at Bit seemed to have detailed knowledge
of such requirements. Nevertheless, the existence of the very
politically prominent ‘211’ and ‘985’ programmes indicates
that requirements for teaching and research excellence by the
universities in these projects must be carefully documented,
and this was confirmed at the Sino-UK Workshop; in fact,
there was quite a lot of discussion on this topic. The criteria
include quantitative assessment of infrastructure, research
and teaching performance, and also a judgmental factor of
‘reputation’. It seems that nothing similar to the QAA guide-
lines existed and universities were required to define the
detail of their strategic plans and organisational structures
and systems themselves.
The institutional framework within which academics work in
China seems to be quite complex. As a generalisation, they
draw salaries from two sources: one is from the central or
regional government education ministry and the other from
the institution itself. In addition, most academic staff live on
campus in accommodation allocated to them by the univer-
sity according to their rank, and there are other allowances
—‘vegetable money’ was mentioned at the workshop. They
are also paid additionally for research, typically receiving a
proportion of the income from their projects and some
receive direct financial awards for good publications.
Government funding was seen to be more prestigious than
commercial funding. There was much diverse discussion
about the details of this at the workshop, but that is the gen-
eral principle. There was an increasing expectation that
applicants for lectureships should have a PhD, and there is a
three-year probation period during which research was sup-
ported and assessed.
Although there is a direct financial incentive for academics to
undertake research, this is balanced by quite comprehensive
systems of teaching quality assurance. At Bit, students are
required to register online for examination at the end of each
module, and at the same time they must complete an online
questionnaire about the quality of the teaching they have
received. Although the detailed operation of such schemes
seems to vary across China, student assessment of this kind
is very common.
Bit also has a semi-independent unit which assesses the qual-
ity of the teaching and learning comprehensively, including
direct observation of teaching. The results are then sum-
marised and the teacher receives an overall assessment. If this
is unsatisfactory, measures are taken; these may include being
reallocated to an ‘easier subject’ or to a different type of job,
possibly non-teaching, altogether.
In addition, the university has to respond to ‘national key dis-
ciplines’ (it has set up 12) and ‘ministerial key disciplines’ (25),
and furthermore all programmes, including Masters and
PhDs, have to be approved by the Ministry of Education.
Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education
Volume 1 • Number 1 • 78