Is this a good salary/offer from a university?

15 comments

1. How old are you and what qualifications do you have?

2. If this is regarding teaching English, then 12 classes is on the higher end. 10 would be average. The salary offered is also average for a two-year renewable contract. Make sure there are no other required duties, like entrance exam grading, department meeting attendance, open campus days, summer camps, study abroad chapperone, etc. My take is that for 12 koma the salary is a bit too low, but for 10 it’s okay. This is assuming no other major duties. Lastly, the no reseach allowance is a red flag in my opinion. Most unis offer some budget for research.

3. Not a good offer. You are being offered a limited contract position with no real benefits and too many classes.

   Four to six classes per year is the average for tenure-track teachers at a respected university; 10-12 classes is considered “overwork” because of committee work and research. No tenured professor would teach 12 classes per semester. Only schools which are in a downfall or trying to cheat their staff require a ten or twelve-class teaching schedule. A typical schedule is four days plus one “research day.”

   Two two-year contracts is especially heinous, as at five years, you can move automatically to “lifetime employment” by law, which means you are hired for life and get a typical salary and benefits. Finding a similar or better job will be more difficult as you will be considered a “hired gun.” If you accept the position, conduct research, publish, and network every chance you get, you might get a similar or slightly better offer.

   Research funds vary, but every teacher should receive ¥300,000 to ¥500,000 per year, with extra available if you apply or are accepted to present overseas.

   Health insurance and pension payments are mandatory; both parties pay 50-50, so that is not really a benefit.

   ¥450,000 per month is not bad for a contract teacher, but 20+ years ago, that was a starting salary and a low-to-medium ranked university with an average number of classes, a bonus, and research funds. Bonuses could be an extra 4-6 months of salary, depending if you did entrance exam work or not.

   It is not a bad offer considering the ¥450,000 gross salary in Nagoya (LCOL) but be prepared that after four years, you will be let go, no matter how hard you tried or how much the students and fellow faculty love you.

4. * 5.4 million yen a year

   * 10 classes is normal(office hours are a bit strange, but not the worst thing I’ve seen) 12 koma is a lot though. But not entirely unseen.

   * Health insurance, pension, transportation is basically required so don’t count that as extra.

   * Housing allowance is extra, so that is nice.

   * Many but not all contract positions come with research allowance, but it isn’t strange to not have it.

   * 4 years is shorter than the normal 5, but it’s not a deal breaker.

   This is a perfectly good offer for a contract position. If you are looking to move away from China, it is a very good option.

5. The other posters here have provided good info (ie that it’s a run-of-the-mill contract position) but I would add that you should find out whether the uni requires you to be on campus 8 hours a day (whether you have classes or not) or if you only have to be there when there’s an on-campus obligation (class, meeting, appointment, etc.). If it’s the former, it’s standard practice to give you a 4-day work week where you have to be on campus and 1 “research day” where you don’t (though they may schedule a meeting or something on your “research” day, forcing you to go in anyway). Something to inquire about.

6. No research allowance is…not good. 12 koma at that salary is also…not good.

   If you’re just looking to get your foot in the door and make the move to Japan, go for it.

7. For a contract position, this is on the outer edge of acceptable. No research allowance does indicate that you are not expected to contribute any more than what you do in the classroom/ in office hours. That may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you want from the job.

   The number of classes is on the high side. I did a job like this for a couple of years (it started off with a research allowance and then that was taken away, so I bounced). There were 8 classes a week and four were basically the same, so only two preps. Class sizes were small.

   It may be worth clarifying how much prep you can reuse in different classes, and how many students you’ll have. 12 discussion classes with 10-12 students, where you repeat material or follow a set textbook, is very different from 12 discrete courses where you make your own materials and numbers are capped at 50.

8. You wanna get to 5 years so you can get an unlimited term contract. Having a maximum of 4 years means you’ll never be able to achieve stable working conditions

9. Back of the envelope: 450,000 x 12 = 5,400,000

   ~11 classes/week x 15 weeks x 2 terms = 330 actual classes

   5,400,000 / 330 = a little over 16,000 per class

   Assumptions are that you’ll have 11 classes/week (not 10, or 12); that terms are 15 weeks (very standard, and you might have an added ‘week’ for testing each term, so 16 instead of 15 weeks).

   As others have mentioned, a big difference will be what is/isn’t expected of you between terms, also any extra duties.

   For this kind of schedule and pay, I would hope that breaks would be free–that you don’t have to be on campus, and that you don’t have to check in (comparable to a part timer).

   Also, given this schedule, IMO adding any committee work would be a no-go. Entrance exam grading is often done by machine now (mark sheets), but making/creating those exams can be a chore–pretty time-consuming.

   *

   Since you mention that it’s nagoya, if memory serves, there’s a school there (NUCB?) that has a bad rep as an employer. Do your googling to explore that.

10. I’d give this job a hard pass. No research allowance means you have to pay for research out of your pocket and that’s not normal in Japan. Fixed term contract or not there should be research money.

    It also means no travel to give presentations at conferences in or out of Japan. So fewer connections made and fewer publication opportunities.

    This job will be a dead end that won’t lead anywhere.

11. Thats what i was making after 3 year as a CIR.

12. It’s not bad if you are not required to do any additional duties or remain on campus when you do not have classes. No research allowance is a bit strange. 12 koma is a bit high, but again tolerable if you do not have any other duties (other than office hours).

    Also, it depends on your qualifications.

13. No research budget sounds odd. I might be wrong but I think that the research budget doesn’t even come from the uni but from the government. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t offer that, might be a kind of red flag on how they run things.

14. For the amount of classes and no research budget it is not great

15. For the amount of classes and no research budget it is not great