On May 25, Xia Qiong 夏琼, who served as head of Journalism at the School of Journalism and Communication at Wuhan University for 12 years, posted a resignation letter on her WeChat Moments social media feed. The letter was circulated and discussed widely on the Chinese internet. Xia wrote: “During my 12 years serving as the head, I accomplished nothing and made no contributions to the school.” She added: “I asked for the school’s approval of my resignation.”
In a later post, Xia further stated: “After fighting for years against a flawed higher-education administration system that has no respect for teaching, tramples on teachers’ dignity, and undervalues students’ intelligence, I eventually realized that all my efforts are meaningless and of no value… It’s extremely difficult to be a dedicated teacher.”
In an interview (in Chinese) with the Beijing News, Xia also said that in the current teacher evaluation system, publishing a paper in a journal far outweighs teaching a good course, and that “publishing in journals has become an industrial chain.”
On the Chinese social media platform Weibo, Xia’s decision was applauded (in Chinese) by many internet users. “I admire teachers like Xia. Higher education in China is dead due to the strict administration system, especially for sensitive subjects such as journalism,” one commenter wrote.
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