VietNamNet Bridge – Three big problems of higher education in Vietnam are limited enrolment, outdated training programmes and the ask-give management mechanism, said former Education Minister, Prof. Tran Hong Quan.

Entrance to universities very narrow

Prof. Quan said that the three above problems are the roots of some disasters of the education sector such as extra teaching and studying, exam misconduct and ‘paper’ scholars.

All the targets that the education sector has set have deadlines for completion in 2009 and 2010, but in fact, they don’t need such a long time to achieve them, the former minister said.

According to National Assembly deputy Nguyen Ngoc Tran, limited student enrolment at universities is one of the reasons causing misconduct.

“If the door to universities is not opened widely, the Ministry of Education and Training can’t solve the extra teaching and studying as well as exam-related problems,” Mr Tran said frankly.

Mr Tran compared the number of graduating high-school students like a river running through the university dam and of ten students, only one can pass the dam. To be that one, all students have to race to study at extra classes and extra studying has become an epidemic for students at all grades. Exams have become very tense for Vietnamese students.

As the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly’s Foreign Relations Committee, who has had opportunities to survey international education, Mr Tran said that Vietnam’s higher education is now alone.

While other countries widely open the entrance to universities and strictly control the exit, Vietnam does the contrary: tightens the entrance and opens the exit.

Speaking to the National Assembly, former Education and Training Minister Nguyen Minh Hien accepted: “It is not very likely that higher education on a small scale brings about good training quality because universities that don’t improve training quality can still get students”.

On the university entrance exam 2006, more than 500,000 students failed. According to Deputy Education and Training Minister Banh Tien Long, the university entrance exams in the next two years will be organised in the same style as 2006.

Mr Long said that basic changes will happen in 2009 when there will be only one national exam for high-school graduation and university entrance consideration. From now to that year, the Ministry of Education and Training will have to research how to organise that exam.

Universities not untied yet

Quach Dinh Lien, Director of the University of Fisheries, universities don’t have enough self-determined power. They have to report everything to the Ministry of Education and Training.

Prof. Tran Hong Quan said that the ministry should be at a higher position to perform the state management function rather than rendering a service for universities.

Universities must have the rights to decide training programmes, contents, teaching methodology without having to ask permission from the Ministry of Education and Training, he said.

Bui Van Ga, Director of the Da Nang University, remarked that the MoET still allocates recruitment quotas to universities annually, which are not suitable to the actual situation.

According to some sources, the MoET will finalise some schemes on renovating the recruitment quota allocation mechanism, applying advanced curricula in higher education, training based on study units in December 2006 and abolishing the organism in charge mechanism for universities and colleges in December 2008.

(Source: VNE)