Hey, for those of you working at a university in Japan, how long is your summer vacation and are you able to take a month off to travel? Full time university jobs seem to pay more, but I worry I won’t be able to get back to see my family in America as long as I’d like compared to the private high school I work at now.
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Shouldn’t you talk to the school you’re planning on working at?
Or are you even in talks with a school at this point?
If not, you’re putting the wagon in front of the horse.
If you’re a contract lecturer you don’t work or get paid during vacation times.
Full-time effectively tenured instructors in Japan are expected to be working or researching year round. There are often regularly scheduled or ad hoc meetings to be attended for one’s department and work for sundry committees even when classes are not in session.
Even many contract teachers are expected to show their faces during times without classes and work during summers on entrance exams and the like; when I was one I had to give notice and contact information for the times I travelled for pleasure. Other universities (my understanding is) treat contract teachers as glorified *eikaiwa* teachers and expect nothing from them outside of teaching duties.
It really depends on the position, but my university has ample time where we can take vacation and in normal times go home. Most universities will inform candidates of this, as it’s basically expected that foreigners will want to go to their home countries at least once a year.
Salaries are paid year round. As another commenter mentioned, universities here are ‘publish or perish’ just like anywhere so it’s good to use this time for that research/writing.
I am speaking from the perspective of a contract full-time instructor (i.e. non-tenure), so I have less administrative responsibilities than some positions, but also have a term-limited contract (no long-term job security). Your mileage may vary.
Edit: missing word
I’ve been in a private high school for about a decade now and our summer breaks keep getting worse and worse. Used to be basically off the whole 6 weeks or so, but now we have to use our paid holidays and stuff and have a couple of summer classes. Still better than the locals but it’s such a bummer. I hope your school doesn’t go this way.
In my experience part timers are completely free up to the day class starts, and free at the end once grades are turned in. Also, at my small uni, they could choose to receive pay spread equally over all months, or lumped so that pay was ‘higher’ during each term but then no pay during breaks.
At both my school and my wife’s being there every day–including the supposed breaks–was required. Besides normal committee work, getting orientation planned for each term, meetings in late Feb and early March to approve which students would (or not) be moving up a year or graduating, the graduation ceremony itself, and matriculation, too, and other things like summer or winter intensive classes (supplemental), and also (pre-covid) taking/escorting groups of students to Oz, UK, US, NZ and so on.
edit: another school in town hires teachers on terminal contracts, works them really hard during the terms (~12 classes/week), but then allows those teachers to travel or just be off during breaks. No chance of ever being permanent.
> are you able to take a month off to travel? Full time university jobs seem to pay more,
Think about it–those full time jobs that pay more undoubtedly expect you to do the same or similar work as other regular faculty, the same duties and responsibilities. Since, you know, they’re paying you the same as those other teachers (and perhaps making you æ£ç¤¾å“¡.
I think the days of gaijin power for long holidays are over. If you want that, fill your plate with a schedule of part time hours.
On the one hand, schools can easily fill their gaijin slots with people who can get along without long holidays–the competition among applicants for jobs is fierce and there is no need for schools to accommodate that. Also, the competition for students means that schools have to really hustle to fill their slots, and this means that there are higher expectations for the faculty.
If you’re on the same pay scale as other faculty, permanent and with possible promotions, etc., why wouldn’t you be carrying an equal share of the load? If it was possible for them, any other faculty member would also like a month off to travel (or ‘do research’), too.
I’ve worked contract full-time at 2 universities now. One was all year no extra vacation. The other is almost 100% off during the breaks.
The one with the longer vacation times pays way more.
In the best-case scenario, full-time non-tenured positions can have nearly 2 months off in the summer. In addition to that, February and March are usually free as well. Add onto that roughly 2 weeks of winter break, and you can have a lot of potential vacation time (4.5 months assuming no research being conducted, conferences attended, or lesson planing or grading done during this time). If you are not looking into making it a long-term career or have no interest in a tenured position, you could really get lucky with this kind of position. You still get paid on your non-teaching months so you could be sipping a cocktail on a beach and getting paid for that (4 to 6 million yen per annum is average for these kinds of positions).
Worst-case scenario is that you are doing a lot of unpaid or low-paid compulsory work during your non teaching months (entrance exam creation or grading, summer camps, intensive summer/spring language courses, and teaching model lessons for open campus events). In addition, you could be asked to attend meetings scheduled inconveniently during breaks. Each university contract will be slightly different but they should detail your responsibilities during the non-teaching months.
Part-time gigs are a whole different world. No admin, no BS, no meetings. Lots of time off. But also no benefits and no pay during time off.
I work full time in a university through a dispatch company. I’m on the same salary year-round but the summer and spring holidays are my own, like they would be for a part-time direct hire. That’s two two-month holidays. I have to be on call for the first couple of weeks of each holiday in case there are any issues with my grades, but I’m totally free for the last six-ish until the new semester starts.
People shit on dispatch uni but I quite like it. I probably have the qualifications to make the move to PTDH, but the only reason that I can see is building my CV in order to eventually go to full-time DH, which I understand is considerably more lucrative yet lighter on teaching. I like doing research, so there’s that, but I also don’t like this publish or perish pressure that DH involves. Also, I would most likely get the boot after five years, whereas now I can stay at my company on an indefinite-term contract. And by the sounds of things in this thread I’d also lose my holidays to attend meetings etc. The money would be nice but I’m not sure it’s worth all that stress.
If your private school will keep you on indefinitely and they pay you decent money, it might be better to stay put. Actually, I’m starting to think private high school might be a better next move for me than moving into other parts of the uni sector.
At my school we have significant breaks, although the higher-ups caution that this could change at any point. So far it hasn’t, though.