Nanjing University of Science and Technology (NUST), in east China’s Jiangsu Province, has overhauled its professional evaluation of teachers. The university has dispensed with the uniform requirements that involve the number of papers published, and enables teachers with no published papers but an outstanding teaching record to apply for high-level titles, a local media outlet reports.
Writing for The Beijing News, Wang Tianding, professor of the School of Literature and Journalism at the Ocean University of China, says Chinese universities have for years taken a one-size-fits-all approach – focused on the number of published papers – to the professional evaluation of teachers. Wang sees NUST's reform as a step in the right direction.
But we must not go from one extreme to another, ignoring the value of publishing altogether, Wang writes. Reforms to professional titles evaluation will have a significant impact on how colleges are run, and on building the knowledge system of the entire country, he says.
The NUST reform takes a dual-track approach that incorporates research and teaching. Wang says teaching and research should not be seen as opposites –research is one of the responsibilities of a college lecturer. Although the requirements for academic research may vary among different colleges and subjects, and teachers differ in their preference for innovation or transmission, in-depth research is important in all cases, Wang contends.
The value of publishing need not be negated either, he says, because it is an important part of knowledge transmission and academic exchange. As long as a healthy academic community with a standard evaluation system is in place, publishing papers and dissertations will continue to play a role.
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