VietNamNet Bridge – Prof Nguyen Minh Thuyet, Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children talked about the target of building four universities of international standards.

Prof Nguyen Minh Thuyet, Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children

One of the goals that have raised arguments among educators and scholars is that by 2020, Vietnam will have some universities listed in the top 200 of the world. What is your viewpoint about that?

Some foreign experts have said that this is a utopian target. A question has been raised, is it more important to have universities listed among the world’s leading universities, or should we strive for the more realistic target of 70-80% of graduates being able to meet the requirements of employers?

In order to build four universities of international standard, the government will have to borrow $400mil. There are two different viewpoints on how to invest that sum of money, either build new universities or inject money in operational universities. What do you think about that?

We should learn experience from the project on developing key national laboratories. 17 key national scientific laboratories have been built with a huge sum of money. However, it is clear that the efficiency of the laboratories is very low.

The equipment of the laboratories is outdated, while the laboratories themselves cannot produce anything to feed themselves. Therefore, the agency which has been assigned to manage the laboratories has once again asked the state for more money so the laboratories can maintain their operations.

The goal of building four universities of international standard which are in the top 200 is very vague, and when there is such vagueness, a waste of money may occur.

The goal proves to be unrealistic when we try to build four universities of international standard from zero. We need to develop well-known universities from the universities with good traditions. It is unfeasible to build universities of international standard from scratch, with $100mil for each.

Don’t you think that it would be more difficult to upgrade universities from the existing ones than build entirely new universities?

Inheritance proves to be an important thing in education development. With the sum of $400mil, it would be better to send staffs abroad for training and to invest in operational universities. When returning, the staffs would become the ‘nuclei’ of the universities, helping upgrade the universities.

Universities of international standard must have scientific achievements and inventions. If Vietnam now starts building universities from scratch, will it be to record scientific achievements in 10-15 years to be listed in the top 100, 200 or 500?

I wonder where we will get staffs for the universities from. In the immediate time, we can get good experts from universities and then invite experts and Viet Kieu from other countries. In fact, foreign lecturers still hesitate to come to teach in Vietnam, especially scientists, because they really have a lot of work to do.

Tung Linh