An update for 2017. Nothing has changed at this university, except they are desperate for overseas teachers. Nanchang has hit crisis point in recruiting overseas English teachers. This establishment is reduced to a few desperate foreign teachers, mostly from India and the Philippines.

This end of term report will hopefully assist teachers to decide if they are considering taking up a post at this university. I suggest you do not. This place should be avoided at all costs.

Jiangxi Science & Technology University
Fenglin Road
Nanchang Economic & Technology Development Zone
Nanchang
Jiangxi Province

There is also a new campus with a different address.

End of Term 2 Report: Jiangxi Science & Technology University, Nanchang, Jiangxi

All hitherto end-of-term reports from overseas teachers to date have been an exercise in futility.

The immediate challenge facing this [university] is to break out of the peasant system / methods and particularly peasant mentality, which purvey the whole institution, and become aware of the demographic and social changes happening in China. This university fails to break out of the mentality one finds in Chinas countryside education system: wholesale failure to communicate internally / lack of communication channels / secrecy and obfustication / uncommunicative and ill-qualified managers /a lack of awareness facing Chinas education system / ignorance and complacency concerning smoking in public areas creating diabolical and unacceptable health risks / cars driven and parked in pedestrianized areas disregarding the safety of students / students lacking basic skills / students lacking classroom skills / poor levels of English and poor levels of education and foreign culture from teachers, managers, leaders and students; above all poor levels of teaching. The combined management of this university are out-of-touch, detached from the realities of China and incapable of managing.

Both senior and junior managers fail to manage this institution and bring it in line with modern educational thinking, and on too many occasions place themselves above the needs of teachers and particularly students. All managers, Deans etc have successfully distance themselves and their inadequacies from overseas teachers, and successfully use co-teachers as a buffer to augment that distance. Overseas teachers have been successfully detached from this university and are institutionally perceived as entertainers only.

Case in point: I was not given my timetable until approximately 12.00 noon on the first day of teaching, after a prolonged, stressful argument involving three people behaving overwhelmingly in my private apartment. I was eventually emailed a timetable, which was written in Chinese and was incomprehensible to me. I was asked to teach 17 hours a week. No instructions were given as to what I should teach, or the method of teaching preferred by my [university], except that it was up to me. 17 hours of English taught a week, but not a single book was given to either the students or myself. Again, with the end-of-term exams, my only instructions were that it was up to me. Students were ill-prepared to be taught by an overseas teacher. I have not seen or have been contacted by my Dean. The Dean of the School of Education, Zhang Yi Ming, who is English illiterate and is simply incapable of running and organising an education department, which requires working with overseas teachers. My co-teacher, Tao Jun Ming proved to be as ineffective as Zhang Yi Ming, and conducted himself like a Jiangxi melon seller than a professional co-teacher. My second co-teacher Huang Man Yuan was merely an ignis fatuus.

There is no system or strategy in place; there has never been a system or strategy in place, to assess and monitor the teaching standards of overseas teachers by professionals or the professionally trained. The only instance of any attempt at monitoring is of an undisclosed, secretive questionnaire, which students are required to complete. Students provide the only critique of overseas teachers teaching performance, sometimes guided by managers, and therefore students successfully channel their subjective dislike of overseas teachers though the questionnaire backed up again by undisclosed, secretive complaints, which allows for unquestioned and unproven rumours to circulate, which are eventually considered as facts. Students are allowed to complain directly against overseas teachers; the complaints are not investigated and knowledge of the complaint is purposely withheld from overseas teachers only to be used as a tool for condemnation at a later date, when the university feels the need to strike. This method is a direct descendant of the practices identified with Chinas repressive Cultural Revolution to intimidate and harass teachers.

At this university there is no sense or awareness from the managers of what they are doing is wrong; managers lack the education, management skills, quality experience and specifically the intelligence to implement a modern and workable system of fairly and compassionately recording teaching performances by overseas teachers, alongside their Chinese colleagues, and dealing with legitimate complaints fairly.

I created and distributed my own fair and unbiased assessment questionnaire, which was ignored by a complacent and ignorant management. Under the recent management of Zhang Kan [a.k.a. John Kent], the Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) has not unexpectedly become dysfunctional and unpleasant. Since Zhang Kans arrival, levels of English, levels of foreign cultural knowledge, levels of professionalism and levels of care have plummeted to a new low, with most overseas teachers preferring not to extend their employment contracts. Currently Quan Hong [Joanna] is Acting Director of FAO, due to Zhang Kans long term illness, and carries a surreal belief in her position. The FAO has made a determined effort not to understand or accept basic employees Rights and needs, such as being treated equally with a sense of fairness. The FAO, under Zhang Kans and Quan Hongs leadership, has simply joined in the superficiality with which overseas teachers are employed at this institution to the detriment of students education. The FAO cannot articulate why they are employing overseas teachers, but merely do so because they are told to.

My request to become familiar with the new anti-smoking regulations, concerning smoking at work and specifically at educational institutions, which have come into force throughout China, continues to be ignored by the Foreign Affairs Office, which has proved relentlessly that it is incapable of communicating necessary and important information in a timely manner; and has since admitted that the university has no plans, no initiative, no ideas, no motivation to address the very real smoking hazards at this institution. Ying Wen Huan (Joey) has admitted that the [university] believes itself to be powerless to stop students and teachers smoking in the teaching buildings and public places on campus, despite recent regulations being enacted by Chinas central government.

I would, however, continue to recommend that fire precautions in the teaching buildings, particularly at the new campus, be given due consideration, as I continue to see locked fire doors, broken or missing fire escape signs, an absent fire evacuation plan in each building and on each floor and; an absence of emergency instructions for teachers; smoking continues by both teachers and students contributing to an unacceptable fire and health risk with complete disregard to new regulations concerning smoking in educational institutions; and questionable fire escape procedures.

I would not recommend this [university] to any other teacher.

Former Teacher