In the future, colleges and universities in Sichuan Province can independently set up majors for undergraduate and higher vocational education, recruit staff and carry out Professional Title Review as well as gain more autonomy in their salary distribution. Recently, five departments including Sichuan Provincial Department of Education issued Opinions on the Reform of Sichuan Province Deepening Decentralization and Delegating Authorities With Proper Governance in Higher Education, which is to implement and expand the autonomy of colleges and universities’ self-running in disciplines and majors, authorized strength and position management, staff selecting and appointment system, evaluation system of teachers’ ranks and titles, salary distribution and the use of funds.
The reform of governance streamlining and authorities delegating of high education field in our province was launched in July last year, starting from title evaluation---the most concerned issue. “The introduction of this document is a re-optimization of the reform policies and measures.” Officials of the provincial education department said it has absorbed the experience of Sichuan’s localized reform and tried to make greater breakthroughs in the existing policy framework.
The first breakthrough is made in the system of selecting and employing people. According to the document, colleges and universities can independently and openly formulate conditions and standards for recruitment or dismissal based on their own needs of development, discipline construction and team building. The document points out that “governmental departments will not organize recruitment examination for university faculty, so as to simplify the employment procedures; the competent department is responsible for the approval of recruitment schemes and the verification and confirmation of the recruited personnel to provide convenient and efficient personnel management services for colleges and universities.” In addition, according to regulations of the state and our province, they can also carry out specific measures and procedures for teachers’ part-time jobs in other companies for scientific and technological achievement transformation as well as their own business starting-up.
In the future, colleges and universities, in line with relevant provisions and actual needs, need to formulate plans and management measures of position setting for all staff within the organization, making them public and accepting supervision; according to the actual education needs and the principle of simplification and efficiency, they can also set internal organs and personnel of teaching, scientific research and administrative functional departments autonomously.
The autonomy expansion of salary distribution is another merit of this reform. Institutions of higher learning can adopt flexible and diverse forms and methods of distribution, such as annual salary system, agreement wage, project salary and so on. It is stipulated that the distribution of performance wages should be preferential to key posts, high-level talents, business backbone and staff with outstanding achievements.
The authority to deal with the state-owned assets has been enlarged. It is clarified that the right to dispose properties which are beyond their service life and should be eliminated belongs to schools. It is introduced that our province has appropriately raised the standards of record and approval of properties disposal. It should be submitted to competent departments for record with their data within 10 working days after self-disposal of higher education institutions under direct governance of the provincial government, including verification of monetary asset losses less than 500 thousand yuan as well as disposal of other non-monetary losses (excluding land and housing) and of property with per unit value or volume value less than 2 million yuan.
