One-third of all part-time lecturers in Japan’s universities and junior colleges earn under two million yen a year ($17,963)—five times less than professors and full-time lecturers, a survey has found. And almost half of them have had their job contracts terminated, the survey, conducted by three unions of university part-time lecturers in the Tokyo, Osaka-Kobe, and Kyoto and Shiga areas, revealed.

The poll, carried out between November 2003 and March 2004 of this year took replies from 482 part-time lecturers, and arranged data from 302 of them who did not have another main job. The average age of the part-time lecturers was 42.4, and they had 10.3 years experience on average. Overall, each of them worked at an average of 2.7 schools, holding 9.1 classes a week lasting an average of 13.7 hours. Yearly wages for the lecturers stood at an average of 2.87 million yen ($25,770), but 34 percent earned under 2 million yen ($17,963) per year. Professors and full-time lecturers earned about five times more than this. Most universities offered the part-timers no expenses for materials, and they spent an average of 290,000 yen ($2,600) a year out of their own pockets on buying materials and other items, the survey found.

A total of 48 percent of the lecturers said they had experienced having their contracts terminated, for such reasons as that the number of classes had dropped. Thirty-four percent of them had experienced “academic harassment,” being hassled by full-time lecturers or their superiors. In the survey, several part-time lecturers said their classes had suddenly been dropped, and that they were subjected to unfair demands then threatened with dismissal when they refused.

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