The Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) should not give low training quality as the reason for its hesitance to give independence to universities. The ministry should check and evaluate training quality, not do the jobs that universities can do themselves. Independence is an unavoidable trend. These are the opinions of education experts.

Barriers for tertiary education

Professor Nguyen Van Chien, former Vice Dean of the Vietnam National Science Institute

The MoET should not consider itself the manager of universities. It should focus on issues of broader scale in the education sector to bring the sector out of its current weak state.

The ministry doesn’t have enough officials who understand thoroughly all problems of universities, especially specialised ones. For example, in my geological field, the MoET doesn’t have staff of high-grade in this field who are capable of verifying the curricula or the teaching methods.

Universities are like special businesses, which produce special goods – the soul and intelligence of humans. The universities that produce good products will gain prestige in society. How can the MoET create prestige for universities?

The ministry should allow universities to recruit students in accordance with their training requirements and only inspect the quality of entrance exams, not help universities in this job. Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan should give more time to big issues of the education sector.

Nguyen Van Hung, Director of the Hanoi Construction University

The law of development will force universities to operate independently but there will be different stages in the process of coming to independence, which is like equitisation. The policy is correct but the implementation of that policy is sluggish.

However, it should not be that the fear of low training quality is put forward as the reason to hesitate giving independence to universities. The ministry should trust its subordinates, create favourable conditions for them and give independence to them as soon as possible.

Tran Huu Nghi, Director of the Hai Phong People-founded University

I know that it is not easy for the MoET to immediately give independence to universities but if it performs this task gradually based on a solid foundation, it can surely be done. The ministry has many times said that it has to reconsider the management capabilities of universities before giving them independence. However, the sooner the ministry gives the right of independence to universities and creates favourable conditions for them, the sooner they can be effective in combating misconduct in education.

People-founded universities can’t only think of the number of input but must think of training quality as well because it determines their survival. If they are allowed to recruit students themselves, difficulties will be less. I think it is unprogressive as the MoET allocates the numbers of students that universities can recruit. If they are allowed to decide input, they will surely tighten the output. At our universities, not 100% of students can graduate.

The MoET should work as a state management agency only and inspect training quality, not do unnecessary jobs which universities can do themselves. It’s time for the ministry to give independence to universities. In the age of competition, only universities having good training quality can survive.

Professor Ho Ngoc Dai

I’ve long supported the policy of giving independence to universities. Universities are adults and they must have the right to make decisions.

The MoET also has the policy to give more power to universities. I think everybody is aware of this issue. The remaining thing is how to perform it. Independence is an unavoidable trend.