VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), along with universities, have agreed that university graduates generally have poor English skills, which do not allow them to use English in their jobs. However, they have not agreed on who is to blame in this case.

The demand for learning English is very big

As such, universities have said that the problem lies in the fact that students do not have enough English periods to improve their English skills.

Nguyen Thi Phuoc Tra, English Lecturer from Quang Nam University, said that 240 periods are not enough for students to go into detail. Tra affirmed that in order to have students who can communicate well in English, it requires more time. She said that it is necessary to remove some periods from other subjects to focus on teaching English to students.

In fact, a lot of universities have spontaneously adjusted curriculum structures to make it more reasonable for students. The HCM City Technique and Technology University, for example, has been providing credit-based English training with 450 periods of English.

MOET: it is the fault of universities

MOET’s Deputy Minister, Banh Tien Long, said that in terms of English training quality, the ministry only has a part of the responsibility, while universities have to take the bigger responsibility for students’ poor English skills.

Long said that 54% of universities, nowadays, do not check the English level of students. As a result, students with bad English skills are put in the same class as students with good skills. On average, there are 48 students in every class, which proves to be a very high number. Meanwhile, there are only 28 computers in a linguistic lab, which proves to be a very small number. And there is only one period in the lab for every 10 English periods.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Luong Ngoc, Dean of the Foreign Language Faculty under the HCM City Banking University, pointed out that it is illogical to ask students, who experience seven years of studying English in general schools, to learn English from the beginning of university.

However, other experts believe that learning English from the start of university is a necessity. According to ETS (Educational Testing Service), the English level of Vietnamese students proves to be very different, by 50 to 850 TOEIC marks. Meanwhile, the survey conducted by IIG at 18 universities in Vietnam showed that first-year students can get a score of 220-245/990 marks on the TOEIC.

At a recent workshop on English skills of Vietnamese students, experts heard reports that show 49.3% of students, from 59 surveyed universities, can meet the requirements in English, while 18.9% cannot meet the requirements, and 31.8% of students need further training.

The reports also said that the majority of university graduates cannot use English in their jobs.

(Source: Dan tri, Sinh vien Vietnam)