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DirtGuy · Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 529

A company I work for in BJ is a state-owned enterprise and they do not celebrate this "holiday" at all. So much for a nationwide thing.

My uni originally told us we would have Monday to Wednesday off with make up classes the week-end before. Still stupid but workable. In the middle of last week, they announce that, no, not 3 days off - it is 5 days off with make up classes on both week-ends. The idiocy of taking any vacation at the end of a term is bad enough but then not even knowing the dates is just too much. Everything is last minute, nobody ever seems to know what is going on, and their final decision on such matters changes by the minute.

Now I find the uni is up for some sort of accreditation next year and they want everything to look and seem perfect. What a screwed up sense of priorities these people have. The worst part is that the students are the ones who suffer for all this.

DG

roadwalker · Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 1750 Location: Ch

[quote="DirtGuy"]A company I work for in BJ is a state-owned enterprise and they do not celebrate this "holiday" at all. So much for a nationwide thing.

My uni originally told us we would have Monday to Wednesday off with make up classes the week-end before. Still stupid but workable. In the middle of last week, they announce that, no, not 3 days off - it is 5 days off with make up classes on both week-ends. The idiocy of taking any vacation at the end of a term is bad enough but then not even knowing the dates is just too much. Everything is last minute, nobody ever seems to know what is going on, and their final decision on such matters changes by the minute.

Now I find the uni is up for some sort of accreditation next year and they want everything to look and seem perfect. What a screwed up sense of priorities these people have. The worst part is that the students are the ones who suffer for all this.

DG[/quote]

I've never known a Chinese uni to take the students into account. They'll worry about them getting hurt and bringing shame and blame to the university, for sure. But as to what is convenient to the students, that is the last group (possible exception of foreign and newer Chinese teachers) to be considered.

DirtGuy · Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 529

Are all unis this inept/uncaring or just the low-end ones like mine?

DG

roadwalker · Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 1750 Location: Ch

dakelei · Joined: 17 May 2009 Posts: 351 Location: USA

One day a few weeks ago I received an email from the liaison person whose job it is at my uni to keep we FT's informed as to what is happening. It said that those of us teaching English Conversation had to be finished our exams the week ending June 16th. I suppose I shouldn't have been but I was caught totally by surprise as that date was several weeks earlier than I thought it would be. Literally 2 days later I got another email telling me about the holiday that was being observed that same week. The Monday and Tuesday classes that were due to be held the 10th and 11th were to be made up the weekend before, on the 8th and 9th. Fine. However, the Wednesday classes were simply not being made up at all. And Wednesday happens to be my busiest day. I had no choice but to hold my exam in those classes a week early. I've been here in China for 10 years now and I am no closer now to "understanding" this kind of thing than I was when I first arrived. Yes, everyone does indeed know in advance when holidays are going to arrive but it seems few know when they are actually going to be "observed" at any particular place. It's a pretty crazy system.

GuestBob · Joined: 18 Jun 2011 Posts: 270

I work in a third tier place in central China and I have had my annual schedule since the start of the semester - all of my classes have their teaching weeks mapped out and any non-teaching weeks due to things like interships are recorded. I can check the timetable of any class group and the duration of their classes across the semester with a few clicks and a bit of squinting at moon-runes.

I checked the computer system and next's year's semester dates are up there, have been for about a month now in fact.

Holidays get released about two weeks before they are happenning but it's normally possible to divine the arrangements a little earlier. Everything is made as an announcement of the frontpage of the university's website.

Obviously this information is in Chinese but Google translate is your friend.

Hell, universities in China have all kinds of plans - even statements of how many students they want to recruit from different provinces for different majors. This just doesn't exist in English.