Only 100 out of 150 universities, and 81 out of 226 junior colleges have completed the self-assessment work, a part of the procedure to have schools accredited. Many schools were recognized as meeting the education quality standards in 2009, but have not got the certificates.

Getting recognized…what’s next?

The HCM City University of Technical Education carried out the self-assessment work in 2005. Four years later, in 2009, the school received a notice from the National Council for Accreditation which said that the school has been recognized as meeting the education quality standards. However, to date, the school has not been granted the certificate on meeting education quality standards, and it has not got any preferences or support from the State.

Thirty nine universities have completed the education quality inspection, while 20 of which have been recognized by the National Council for Accreditation as meeting the education quality standards. All of the schools say they do not understand what the recognition is for, and what they should do after the recognition.

Nguyen Tien Dung, Head of the Training Division of the school, said that the ministry should have granted certificates to the schools which meet the quality standards, and offer preferences to the schools.

For example, Dung said, the ministry should give the autonomy to the schools by allowing them to make decisions themselves in setting up new training branches.

“It looks like we make troubles for ourselves when we spend time and money to verify education quality and we do not get any benefits from that work,” Dung said.

Truong Chi Hai, an officer from the Can Tho University, also said that the current situation of the recognized schools may lead to the fact that schools will not be interested in having education quality accredited.

Lacking experience, money

Hai from the Can Tho University, which is carrying out the self-assessment work, said that the university is facing many difficulties. Especially, the officers assigned to take this work do not have professional knowledge and they really lack experiences.

Do Dinh Thai from the Saigon University, also said that education accreditation is really an unfamiliar job, therefore, the school has to send two officers to the Hanoi National University to study to get master degrees on the field.

Not only lacking experience, schools have complained that it is very difficult to arrange money to cover expenses for the education accreditation. The Can Tho University, for example, only budgets 100 million dong a year for the work. Meanwhile, the expenses for printing questionnaires for learners alone cost tens of millions dong.

Hai said that due to the lack of money, the school only has 3 million dong only to assess a training program, while an officer can get 100-200,000 dong, much lower than the pay for teaching.

Educators urge to legalize education accreditation

Only 100 out of 150 universities and 81 out of 226 junior colleges have completed the self-assessment work, a part of the procedure to have schools accredited. Dung from the HCM City University of Technical Education said that schools do not really want to have education quality assessed, because they still cannot see the benefits the work can bring.

Meanwhile, Hai said that schools will not have education quality accredited unless this is a compulsory work. He said that the Ministry of Education and Training should apply reasonable policies to encourage schools to have education quality accredited and punish the schools which do not do this work well.

Sharing the same view, Dr Nguyen Phuong Nga from the Hanoi National University said that once meeting education quality, schools should be given some preferences; for example, they can increase the number of students to enroll, raise the tuitions or get priorities in the state’s financial support programs. Meanwhile, the schools which cannot meet the requirements must not be allowed to enroll students and provide training services.

Source: NLD