Research On Appointment System Of College Teachers In Hongkong

The formation and development of appointment system of college teachers in Hongkong have been influenced greatly by new public management. The reformation of public sectors in Hongkong advocates introducing market mechanism and corporate management method to government departments for the purpose of penetrating them into the field of higher education to change the traditional appointment way of teachers. Hongkong conducts a plan of extension of higher education, and in accordance with the principle of saving energy and increasing effect, bring theories of new public management to the design of appointment system of college teachers. In the end of 1990s, for the affect of Asian financial turmoil, Hongkong government cut fund from higher education, which an austere challenge for Hongkong higher education depended upon financial allocation from government. In order to adapt constant change of external environment, colleges and universities have to make adjustment, introducing market operational mechanism and corporate management mode.Development of appointment system of college teachers in Hongkong have reasonable systematic environment. In external governance, universities and colleges have absolute right for appointing teachers, and the government has no right to intervene. Hongkong government has established such intermediary organizations as Education Commission, University Grants Committee, Hongkong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications to indirectly influence the design and operation of appointment system of college teachers mainly through appropriation, supervision and evaluation. In internal governance, the governance pattern of universities and colleges in Hongkong may simply reduce to the president accountability system led by the council, which means committees of a university report work to the council through the president, but there exists separation between management of administrative affairs and academic affairs, the council has no decisive right for academic affairs for they are in charge of the Senate and its committees where administrative affairs are in charge of committees under the Council, and Alumni Council is the consulting and supervisory organ. Each department has specific responsibility, the limits of authorities are clear but check and balance each other, and simultaneously, each authority can effectively communicate and cooperate. Appointment of college teachers belong to the category of academic affairs, administrative and planning committee under the Council takes charge of co-ordination, and the senate, college affairs committee and department affairs committee take charge of implementation, which reaches gradual shift of academic powers from top to bottom.From the aspect of standardized level, appointment system of college teachers in Hongkong includes a set of criteria such as admittance, promotion, assessment, salary and quit, which is the legal foundation for operation of academic system in universities and colleges, by this universities and colleges in Hongkong ensure that college teachers have laws to abide by for this complete process from admittance to quit. Base on an overview of each process of appointment system of college teachers in Hongkong, it can be found that the system has rich features of new public management and embodies market operation mechanism advised by new public management in that admittance, promotion, assessment, salary and quit system of college teachers coincide with market selection, competition, monitoring, transaction and quality guarantee in market operation mechanism of public new management.From the aspect of organizational level,standardized texts of appointment system of college teachers, by nature, deliver "logic of law", are guide documents of "can do" and "can not do" in operation of standardized system, and also, the surface layer of the system. From the outside to the inside, it can discover that the design of every system has certain governing ideas, describing the separation and game of powers and its operation pattern, which shows "governing logic" of the system. It can be found that appointment system of college teachers in Hongkong contains these salient features of new public management through profound examination. Powers of appointing college teachers in Hongkong disperse into public service commission established by each school or department, department heads and deans, who have no absolute decisive powers for appointment of teachers, and therefore a relationship of checking and balancing each other, and consultation and negotiation has been formed, embodying the viewpoint of "separation of powers" advocated by new public management; different from the mainland, powers of appointment system of college teachers in Hongkong are realized through multiple layer transfers by the Council of universities and colleges since powers of appointing associate professors are transferred from academic vice president to the deans, and powers of appointing assistant professors are transferred from the deans to the department heads, which indicates the position of "the center of powers shifts downwards" advocated by new public management; admittance, promotion, assessment, etc. of college teachers in Hongkong are decided by senior professors, which exerts the spirits of academic charisma and professor ruling, and shows "public accountability" advocated thereby; the design and operation of appointment system of college teachers in Hongkong have the feature of paying attention to efficiency involved in bureaucrat system, and also have the democratic feature of academic system, coinciding with "performance management" in new public management.From the cultural analysis, organizational cultural of universities and colleges in Hongkong is prominently manifested in salient of the spirit of rule of law, tradition of liberalism and direction of humanism, and thus appointment system of college teachers attached to this kind of organizational culture has characteristics of authority, flexibility and diversity. In 2003, the reform of personnel system of Peking University had introduced appointment system of teachers of Hongkong University of Science and Technology. The design ideas of standardized texts of appointment systems in two universities are the same, both have introduced market operation mechanism into appointment of teachers, while there appeared different governing logic. The reason is that the success of Hongkong University of Science and Technology mainly lie in the good combination of appointment system of teachers with organizational culture ecology.Appointment system of college teachers in Hongkong greatly has the feature of new public management and emphasizes to introduce market competition mechanism, which indeed increases attentions to quality of higher education, and makes promotion of scholars more transparent, but still has the defect that it can bring about "Matthew Effect" for academic development of scholars. Appointment system of college teachers taking market mechanism as its design idea exists crises:teaching separates from research, quantitative assessment system for teachers washes away the characteristic of academic occupation, changes in salary policies have no salient function for encourage of teachers. The reasonable university age without any external utilitarianism will never return, so how to inherit the merits of reasonable universities in university age with academic capitalism, and overcome the disadvantages brought by marketization and enterprise management patter to academic development of teachers becomes the direction for future reformation. Developing tendency of appointment system of college teachers in Hongkong mainly focuses on post-tenure assessment policies, reducing and limiting the number of tenure positions, increasing the proportion of performance-related pay and ensuring the leading role of peer review in promotion of teachers.Appointment system of college teachers is the main body of modern university academic system. Influenced by the feature of "later emergency from the outside" of Chinese universities, appointment system of college teachers in the mainland of China had the overtone of national plan from the start, which encouraged a lot under current environment, but also completely covered the function of universities and colleges as independent academic subject, In recent years, the reform of appointment system of college teachers has achieved a lot, where it still exists certain issues as we are exploring through practices, therefore we need to introduce western university system based on native culture, i.e., a number of issues need to be discussed through the specific practice, and university spirit, idea, responsibility, freedom, organizational culture, etc. still need to be thought profoundly. From researching appointment system of college teachers in Hongkong, it can be found that its success lies in advancing the reform of personnel system from three layers, which can be attributed to ternary structure, that’s to say, perfect standardized texts of appointment system of college teachers, healthy organizational structure thereof and harmonious cultural ecology thereof. Currently, personnel system reform of mainland have transferred from system transplant to organizational construction, and the mainland and Hongkong can be cooperated in cultural construction for they are from one and the same source. The reform of appointment system of college teachers in mainland needs to take development of academic occupation as basis in the construction of standardized texts, coordinate power operation mechanism in organizational structure, and have reasonable cultural consciousness in construction of cultural ecology.