According to Ministry of Education and Ministry of Finance:Opinions on the Team Construction of Professional Directors and Teachers of Confucius Institutes (Chinese Language Teaching[2012] NO. 1 ), Hanban organized the first professional teachers’ team in 2012-2013. The selected teachers, upon training, would be designated Chinese teachers for Confucius Institutes who would serve consecutive terms in overseas CIs and domestic posts to ensure stable and professional teaching requirements of Hanban.
Professional teachers of Confucius Institutes are those commited for long term posts in international Chinese language Education. They are employed as formal staff of universities upon recommendation from Confucius Institute Headquarters/Hanban, whose duty is to teach Chinese in overseas Confucius Institutes according to the assignment plan of the Confucius Institute Headquarters/Hanban. They generally teach 4 years for a term before coming back to China, while their domestic working time is determined by specific circumstances. While working abroad, they are mainly under the management of Hanban, and their living standards are written down in the Provisions for the Administration of Living Standards of Government Dispatched Teachers (Ministry of Finance [2011] NO. 194); While working in China, they are administered by the concerned university, following its arrangement and enjoy remuneration as other stuff members of the same rank.
In the beginning of November, 2012, BFSU took part in the Competitive Application for the Reserve University of CI Professional Teachers organized by Hanban, and was finally designated as one of the Reserve Universities with its first batch of 30 reserve Chinese language teachers. BFSU set a “Professional Chinese Teachers Reserve Center” in its Multilingual Base of International Promotion of Chinese Language. The center takes charge of the daily management of professional teachers at home and abroad, with a clear division of work. Those teachers’ posts in China are coordinated and arranged by the Reserve Center and the university’s Human Resource Department.
Till now, all of BFSU’s 30 professional teachers have signed contracts and started their work. To highlight BFSU’s multilingual features and meet the language requirements of our overseas Confucius Institutes, the school provides financial support for those teachers to learn a second foreign language in BFSU’s training school. The school pays close attention to personal development and career planning of those teachers, encourages them to participate in professional title appraisal and actively organizes vocational training for them. For instance, BFSU invited Zhai Jun, former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, to have a lecture themed “International Situation and Chinese Foreign Policies”; Teachers Development Center of the Human Resource Office of BFSU has also held a symposium on young teachers’ development.
At present, 28 of the school’s 30 professional teachers have been deployed to overseas Confucius Institute. The other two are working in BFSU’s administrative or teaching posts.
