I feel like a fraud

'I feel like a fraud. I’ve been teaching for six years now but since the teachers’ qualification examination is scheduled for the summer holidays, I’ve always dodged it. I’ve preferred to take an overseas tour with my family,’ my friend said when I asked her about her holiday plans. ‘So this summer, I’m going to get it over with. It will be hilarious, though, to have one teacher invigilating over a large group of his colleagues who are trying to get through by cheating. The system is just ridiculous.’

After graduating with a master’s degree in a top theatre academy in Beijing, my friend has been teaching stage directing in a school of arts. The school is run by a former actor who was a popular leading man in his younger days. Her keen frustration, though, does not derive only from a ‘ridiculous system’ that requires all teachers to acquire a qualification by passing an exam – the cause of the widespread cheating – but from another corrupt practice she is bound by.

This involves submitting articles regularly, regardless of their scholarly value, to an academic journal in order to fill up the space that her school has bought in it. This way, the school has a more visible ‘research’ profile, and those who play the game will eventually fill up their quota of ‘research publications’ that are required when they come to apply for a more senior post. In my friend’s case, the post is that of Associate Professor.

There is surely nothing wrong with that if in both processes proper standards are being upheld: but abuses abound and they are being widely, if covertly, ridiculed.

In the old days professional seniority was often linked to length of service, and thus the older one was, the higher one’s status. However, in modern China many who are young or who have only just acquired their doctorates are immediately awarded senior titles. One is tempted to believe that if their publications were judged with any academic rigour, very few of them would rise so meteorically.