EMPLOYMENT CONDITIONS IN THE UNIVERSITY: UPDATE AUTUMN 2001
By Arudou Debito (ne
Dave Aldwinckle),
JALT Kitakyushu Presentation with John McLaughlin,
Nov 23, 2001, 11AM
We have discussed issues of job security and academic performance on various occasions
in the past (see references). This talk is not to debate whether employment systems
of tenure or ninkisei contract are fair or viable--that is dealt with in an
upcoming paper in The Language Teacher. Rather, its purpose is to describe
recent trends in university hiring practices for full-time positions.
THE SHOE ON THE OTHER FOOT: NINKISEI FOR JAPANESE TOO
Historically, "ninkisei" in Japanese tertiary education has
meant a system where certain people (until 1997, educators lacking Japanese nationality)
are offered one- to three-year contracts. Although laws on ninkisei state
that contracts are "renewable by mutual consent", in practice renewal is
at the employer's discretion (Japanese courts in the Korst and Gallagher Cases have
upheld the employer's "right not to renew" (i.e. fire) contracted employees
on almost any grounds, since judges said the act of signing a contract implied a
tacit employee understanding that the position is temporary). For over a century,
this system enabled Japanese universities to hire foreigners full-time on a time-limited
basis (while Japanese received tenure from day one), often terminating foreign faculty's
employment to cut costs.
Now, with the Japanese student body dropping from the low birthrate, downsizing
and cost-cutting measures are seen as necessary for institutional survival. In 1995,
the University Deliberation Council (Daigaku Shingikai) drew up White Papers
to pave the way for contracting Japanese academics (hitherto taboo--since National
and Public Universities treated Japanese as civil servants, permanently-employed
if full-time; Private Universities did the same because perpetual full-time contracting
was frowned on by the Labor Standards Law, which applies to the Private Sector).
In 1997, the Diet passed the Sentaku Ninkisei Hou, making it "optional"
for universities to adopt ninkisei for their educators (regardless of nationality),
and establishing that perpetual contracts were also permitted under Labor Standards
Law.
At first, few universities adopted ninkisei, since most Japanese educators
would understandibly choose tenure over a post where they could be fired. So the
Ministry of Education (Monbushou, now officially Monbukagakusho, hereafter
MoE) began adjusting the system using its regular tools of administrative guidance.
Keeping universities financial alcoholics through grant monies, MoE has recently
created a budget (asking the government for 403億円 in 2002 (NB: around US
$400 million--or enough for 4000 employees to make around US $100,000 per annum)
for "Coordination and Promotion of Science Technology" (kagaku gijutsu
shinkou chouseihi), meaning if the university breaks ranks and hires "researchers"
(kenkyuusha) under contracts, MoE will pay their salaries. Consider the precedent:
once established, over time these full-time "researchers" ultimately crowd
out tenured "educators" (kyouin) in future entry-level university
hirings--especially if the present faculty remain grandfathered, unaffected, and
sold on the institutional savegrace of cheaper faculty.
Proposal has become practice. According to the Daigaku Shingikai report
on Globalization (2000), zero National and Public Universities had ninkisei
employment for full-time Japanese in 1997. Since then universities with ninkisei
have steadily appeared. In 1998 there were 16 Nat and Pub universities with 82 contract
"researchers". By 2000 that had more than tripled to 52 universities,
contract "researchers" increasing by more than seven-fold, to 597. These
statistics do not include the five Private Universities (as of 1998) which also opted
for this MoE deal, making the trend sectorwide.
That is the Japanese side of the coin. As for the update on how the reverse is
proceeding--tenure for foreigners--I have been less successful getting data on sectorwide
hiring practices for foreign faculty.
MONBUSHOU KEEPS MUM
It is a chore to get information from Japan's ministries, and MoE, as lobbiers
involved in the Prefectural University of Kumamoto can attest, is particularly protective.
With the passage of Japan's Freedom of Information Act (Jouhou Koukai Hou)
in 1999, all ministries are required to have a "Public-Access Information Desk"
(Jouhou Koukai Shitsu) which will surrender documentation on request. MoE
is no exception. The problem is the Desk's staff are not librarians there to do
research for you. You must request on a form (行政文書開示請求書) the exact name
of the document you require--not ask a general question like "How many foreigners
are tenured in all of Japan's universities?" To be fair, the Desk staff did
their best, but I spent more than three hours there researching, plus two more personally
asking junior bureaucrats at the 高等教育局 (I got in because I had letter correspondence
with them in April and May 2001 for a May 20 JALT Hokkaido Presentation) for information
on the employment status of all foreigners at all Japanese universities. 高等教育局
continued to deny they had any statistical records of foreign faculty outside of
public universities (which is highly dubious, since MoE approves all university faculty
in Japan, and thus should have on file what capacity those people were hired; after
all, even professorial statuses are published in the 職員録). They would only release
data for National and Public Universities. With this caveat in mind, let's talk
about trends.
According to the 高等教育局企画課法規係, the number of non-Japanese hired full-time
at all ranks at the Nat and Pub Universities were, as of July 1, 2001: 662 people
(1998), 696 (1999), and 706 (2000). However, of those totals, the number who were
not on ninkisei were 150 (23% of 1998's total), 180 (26% of 1999's), and 205
(29% of 2000's). This indicates three interesting job market trends: 1) Despite
demography, the public universities are in fact not downsizing, 2) Foreigners are
being tenured in greater proportions, in a market once closed to them due to "nationality
clause" concerns, and 3) Tenured foreigners are still clearly a minority. Things
seem to be getting better, but without data from Private Universities, where the
majority of Japanese university faculty work, definitive conclusions evade.
UNIVERSITY HIRING PRACTICES ALSO CHANGE
To be fair again, it's not all MoE's doing. As administrator of the Blacklist
and Greenlist of Japanese Universities, I see job announcements becoming more sophisticated.
Many don't say the position is contracted (in violation of MoE guidelines about
up-front and explicit employment limitations), or when doing so promote the benefits
(housing, travel expenses, higher monthly salary but often no bonus). Fired faculty
also email me of capped contracts at one or two renewals, a condition revealed only
after their arrival. Other unis use the western rubric of a "Visiting Professorship"
(though Japanese are not eligible for this post). The most original are those (cf.
Ritsumeikan) which no longer say explicitly that contracts are for "foreigners"--rather
for "Native-speaker Full-time English Language Instructors" (which would
make me, as a Japanese citizen, an applicant saddled with the wrong native tongue).
To be sure, more tenurizing universities join the Greenlist every seasonal update,
but a search of most full-time job announcements reveals that non-ninkisei
positions are still diamonds in the rough.
CONCLUSION: MoE IS GETTING ITS WAY IN "GAIJINIZING" EVERYONE
Under the bureaucratic rubric of "enlivenment" (kasseika) and the
(rather supercilious) "personnel nurturing" (jinzai ikusei) in its
internal documentation, MoE is slowly taking control of a sector hitherto untouchable
after Japanese educators were hired full time--their employment tenure. Although
naysayers (and MoE itself) may claim that the latter has no say over a person's employment
dismissal, it is certainly now more conceivable than ever that if an educator on
ninkisei espouses unpopular views, a quick phone call from the MoE to the
Dean, hinting about future administrative favors denied, can certainly result in
a contract non-renewal. This informal system of oversight is historically well-established
with foreign academics (cf admin guidance 1992-94) in the previous century. The
next century promises to make it universal. In sum, contracts, not tenure, are
gaining ground in the Japanese university job market, making it harder for any educator
in Japan regardless of nationality to be financially secure.