Professor Hoang Tuy, a senior educator in Vietnam, said that he feels very disappointed with the new regulation on the requirements for professorship granting, promulgated on December 31, 2008.

Professor Hoang Tuy

Under the previous regulation, after the State Professorship Council, the candidates automatically became professors or associate professors. With the new regulation, after the recognition, the candidates will become professors or associate professors only when some universities proposed to designate them.

Professorship is not the ‘state’s value’, and we don’t think that the state needs to keep too strict of management over the professorship granting.

But the article of the new regulation stipulates that the universities that have the demand for professors and associate professors will make public about the demand, then receive applications from candidates and make proposals for the designation. Don’t you think that the article means the decentralization in education?

The problem lies in the fact that universities only have the right for proposing for the designation, but only the Minister of Education and Training has the right to release the decision of designation.

Meanwhile, in the US, Japan or Australia, professors of every university is appointed by the principal of the university itself. The Government-appointed scheme now exists only in France.

Do you think that the regulation is necessary to avoid the massive and spontaneous granting of professorship which may not base on the capability of candidates, but just on the relationship of the candidates with leaders of some universities?

The state should keep management at a minimum level. Universities need to be given the right to grant professorship and they must responsible for the granting of professors. The same mechanism should also be applied for the granting of a doctorate degree. We should have the universities’ doctors, while we should not have national doctors. Because, as I said above, professorship and doctorates are not the state’s values.

Could you please tell us more about the previous mechanism of professorship granting?

All the candidates, who want to be granted professorship, all have to send applications and files of scientific biographies to the state professorship council for consideration and recognition.

However, the files need to be considered by the professorship council at the grassroots levels. Every application of every candidate needs to be recognized by at least three professors or associate professors of the same branch.

After that the files of the candidates will be submitted to the councils of higher levels (branch and inter-branch councils), and then the state professorship council. The problems lies in the fact that how can we have enough capable scientists to check the files? The procedures seem to be strict, but they are just representing the bureaucracy, which shows that the policy makers do not understand anything about modern education.

Let’s talk about other requirements in the new regulation. You have said that not only the professorship granting procedures are not suitable, but the standards for professorship accreditation also still have problems?

Yes, I have. I find a lot of standards unnecessary. For example, the new regulation said that professors and associate professors must use at least one foreign language for their studies and can communicate well in English. Besides, the new regulation said that associate professors must lead at least two learners for a MA.

I believe that the requirement on the English communication skill is not necessary. If you have fluent English in your field, the requirement on fluent communication skill is not necessary. The normal English will be not enough to write scientific research.

Scientifically, there is no need to require researchers to have good communication skills. Cao Xuan Nguyen, for example, the philosophy professor, a Taoism researcher, is very good at French and Chinese, but I believe he cannot speak English. If referring to the new regulation, Nguyen will not get the professorship.

How about the problems in the requirement of leading postgraduates for MA and doctorate degrees?

In some cases, scientists have many scientific works, but they do not have students for MA and doctorate training. If referring the requirements, even Professor Ngo Bao Chau could not be the professor.

When professors and associate professors are recognized and assigned works at universities, they will have students. Meanwhile, we ask them to have students first to become professors.

Our problem is that we ignore international standards while setting up regulations.

Bao Anh