The Faculty Salary System in Japanese National Universities

The Annual Pay Rise and the Diligence Allowance

Abstract

　 In this paper, I have taken up and considered the topic of salaries paid to faculty members of Japanese national universities from the point of view of merit increment. To be concrete, I conducted questionnaire-based surveys with the deans of university schools and the heads of departments to confirm what was actually happening and to measure the awareness on the part of faculty members of the issues raised by the system of an annual pay rise and the diligence allowance. The main findings are as given below.

　 Firstly, the annual pay rise and the diligence allowance are calculated on the basis of each professor’s performance in research, teaching, and administration. This means that every aspect of work, with the exception of service to the local community, is equally emphasized.

　 Secondly, faculty members who receive merit salary increases are in fact chosen by deans. Faculty meetings and heads of departments do not have a great deal of influence.

　 Thirdly, a majority of deans and department heads had difficulty with a short-period rating and felt fear of being given a dysfunctional rating. But these problems were not major factors to the extent of affecting general aspirations for the expansion of wage differentials, or a performance-related pay orientation.

　 Fourthly, those who answered that rating of faculty members by deans and heads was incompatible with academic culture did not form a majority. But they tended not to agree with a performance-related pay orientation.　 Fifthly, heads of departments who had difficulty discriminating between faculty members tended not to agree with a performance-related pay policy.

　 On the basis of those findings, I discussed standards and a system for judging who should get merit salary increases.