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Summary of article:
Bai Baoguo, an associate professor at Yan’an University, was suspected of drowning in the lake due to undue evaluation pressure. At the last minute a letter circulated online accusing the school of horizontal funding and imbalances in the evaluation system. The Shaanxi Education Department has intervened in the investigation.
Recently, it was reported on the Internet that Bai Baoguo, a 54-year-old associate professor at Yan’an University, committed suicide by drowning in the lake. It is suspected that his last letter stated that Yan’an University had problems such as “one-size-fits-all setting of horizontal scientific research funds” and “employees are being paid empty salaries”. The Shaanxi Provincial Education Department announced on the evening of November 4 that the school had confirmed the death of teacher Bai Baoguo and formed a joint investigation team with relevant parties to verify the content of the letter posted online.
According to widespread media reports, “A final letter from Yan’an University Associate Professor Bai Baoguo” has recently been circulated on the Internet, in which he accused the school’s current evaluation system of being extremely unfair. Bai Baoguo revealed in the letter that he faced demotion or transfer because he failed to meet tough targets for two consecutive terms of appointment. He also accused the school of having problems such as “establishing horizontal scientific research funds across the board” and “appointed staff being paid on a bare basis”, forcing most teachers to raise their own funds, transfer funds to the school through cooperative companies, and then submit false bills for reimbursement to carry out their tasks.
Yan’an University later confirmed that teacher Bai Baoguo had passed away and the contents of the letter were currently being verified.
Bai Baoguo is an associate professor at Lu Xun Art College, Yan’an University. He graduated from Wuhan Conservatory of Music. He serves as a member of the Chinese Composers Association and vice president of the Yan’an Composers Association. He has been deeply involved in the field of piano teaching for over 30 years. Since the evaluation and ranking of universities is often linked to scientific research funding, some schools allocate horizontal funds to each teacher. However, compared to science and engineering, it is extremely difficult for humanities such as literature and arts to obtain corporate horizontal projects, which has led to the illegal practice of teachers raising funds themselves in order to “fake cooperation, but actually succeed”.
Many netizens criticized, commenting, “You have to be desperate to commit suicide. We must investigate strictly. The current university evaluation system is a double destruction of scientific research and teaching.”
According to a survey by China Social Sciences Journal, about 90% of the college teachers surveyed admitted that there were graying practices associated with false horizontal topics around them, and about 20% of the teachers also admitted that they had personally participated in it. The institutional dilemma that Bai Baoguo exposed in the last letter of his life not only exposed the helplessness and struggle of arts and humanities teachers under the science and engineering evaluation indicators, but also made the horizontal funding indicators of universities and the resulting fraud and chaos a core issue for all sectors of society to urgently review and improve.
Summary FAQ
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It has been confirmed that Yan’an University teacher Bai Baoguo has passed away and the school has also confirmed this. As for the specific allegations in the final letter posted online, the Shaanxi provincial education department said it was forming a joint investigation team with relevant parties, which have not yet been verified.
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The letter mainly accused the evaluation system of being too harsh, requiring teachers to meet horizontal scientific research funding targets, and mentioned issues such as staff being paid empty salaries. It also claims that many teachers are forced to raise funds themselves, reimburse accounts and even submit false documents to meet standards.
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This incident reflects the plight of humanities and arts teachers under science and engineering indicators. Because it is difficult to achieve horizontal disciplines in enterprises, but they still need to complete funding functions, it may induce false cooperation, true redundancies and other irregularities, triggering discussions on system reform.
