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Income gap is big reality on campus

By Wang Wei: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, December 3, 2011

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It has become a common sight in Chinese universities: poor professors cycling to classes on Flying Pigeon bicycles, while their higher-paid colleagues arrive in stylish BMWs. The disparity is a symbol of the large income gap which now exists on campuses across China. [File photo]

He added that modern universities and their individual departments are under pressure to generate revenue. As a result, in order to help achieve this, there is a tendency among professors to offer lavish dinners and gifts, accept commissions, or worse. When faced with such commercial pressures, professors are unable to devote themselves to genuine research.

The former president believes that the serious issue of academic work has become commercialized. "Academics today attach little importance to making contributions in their field," he said. "They are more concerned with winning funding and programs."

Not surprisingly in such an environment, modern university presidents are largely assessed on how much scientific research funding their university has won.

However, only two decades ago, the former president, then president of his university, said that he was more concerned with the quality of the education provided by his university than with financial considerations. He concluded that immediate action was necessary to redress the balance.

"If money is the only consideration, both the education system and the country will be harmed," he said. "The education system should consider introducing reasonable salaries and making them public."

However, according to some, merely publishing professors' salaries would only tell part of the story. One netizen who calls himself "Zhanzhangdaheng" wrote that, as a professor of bridge engineering, he earns 200,000 yuan (US$31,454, including duty allowance and bonuses), per year. He also receives an annual fund of around three million yuan (US$471,809) for his research subjects.

"It's not sufficient to see how much I earn," he wrote. "You should also be aware of how much effort I've put in. For almost ten years, holidays and weekends have been alien concepts to me."

There are professors whose salaries are much lower. In general, they tend to work in traditional subjects for an average yearly salary of not less than 100,000 yuan (US$15,727).

For netizen "xinr2010", money is just a symptom of an underlying problem. "The problem is not whether these professors are rich or poor, but the reason underlying the phenomenon," he wrote. "The most disappointing aspect is that professors who devote themselves to teaching and scientific research are poor; perhaps most infuriatingly, those who neither teach nor undertake scientific research are rich."

However, commentator Zhang Pengjie believes that it's unreasonable to keep all professors at the same income level. But he, like netizen "Xinr2010", also feels there are wider issues involved. "If those professors are poor because their subjects are ignored and few tasks or programs are available for them, these things will need to be addressed," he said.

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