Summary

China’s Ministry of Education (MoE), together with the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) and several other ministries, has released a draft regulation over the recruitment and management of foreign teachers.

The draft regulation would apply to all foreign citizens recruited by Chinese educational institutions (including non-formal education such as private training centres) as teaching staff. Supplementary rules also state that these regulations should be “used as reference” for the management of overseas teaching staff on short-term scholarly visits, those working at schools whose students are limited to non-Chinese citizens, and foreign nationals located outside the country providing online education to students within China.

Many of the requirements are similar to those in previous regulations – for example, foreign teaching staff must hold valid visas and work permits; they must abide by Chinese laws (including making sure that their teaching does not “harm China’s national sovereignty, security, honour, or the public interest”), and must have a clear contract with their employer.

Some other notable points in the draft regulations include:

• Newly hired teaching staff should complete at least 20 hours of job-related training, covering areas such as Chinese laws and professional ethics as well as job-related knowledge or skills.
• A unified national “credit system” for foreign teachers will be established, with a blacklist forbidding institutions from hiring those who break certain regulations (such as drug use, sexual harassment or submitting fake information) or who accumulate three or more lesser offences (such as being fired by their institution or unilaterally resigning before completing their contract).
• The regulations unify and clarify restrictions on overseas teaching staff. Staff must have no criminal record, no infectious diseases, and no history of mental illness, sexual harassment or drug abuse. They also require at least a bachelor’s degree (which for non-language teachers should be in a relevant subject area). In most cases they should also have at least two years’ relevant teaching experience, although this can be waived for staff with a PhD or with professional teaching qualifications or language teaching certificates.
• Institutions are responsible for ensuring that staff do not have an unreasonably intensive teaching load.
• In contrast to previous rules it is now possible for foreign teaching staff to do part-time work for another employer, but this must be approved by the primary employer and reported to the local education bureau in advance.

The regulations are currently still in the draft stage, meaning that they might be revised based on feedback.

Analysis by Kevin Prest, Senior Analyst, IES

Many of the requirements in the draft either existed in previous versions of the regulations or are already being applied in particular provinces or for specific sectors. For example, many provinces and institutions have their own rules requiring that overseas staff should be trained on relevant Chinese laws and teaching regulations. The unified credit system and national blacklist of unsuitable teachers is one of the biggest new developments.

The British Council has approached the Ministry of Education for feedback on some of the areas where the regulations seem unclear, particularly the extent to which the proposed regulations would apply to UK universities’ teaching staff on short-term assignments in China as part of joint teaching programmes. The MoE clarified that this delivery model would not typically be regarded as an unreasonably intensive teaching load, although this would depend on the individual situation.

On the question of whether visiting staff would be required to take the 20 hours of training, the MoE commented that the regulations applied directly to teachers initially employed by the Chinese institutions, but that local universities will be expected to take these rules into account when setting up their own management procedures for visiting staff. The host institutions would be responsible for arranging any training.

Sources:

1. The draft regulation in Chinese: http://www.moj.gov.cn/news/content/2020-07/21/zlk_3252777.html

2. China Daily news: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202007/23/WS5f18fa43a31083481725b97e.html

3. Previous regulations in Chinese (1991): http://old.moe.gov.cn//publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_621/201001/xxgk_81927.html