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Vietnam’s universities need greater autonomy: US expert

Published: 19/02/2009 05:00

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The approach to higher education in Vietnam is in dire need of revision, says the director of strategic planning and institutional research at the US’s Pratt Institute in New York.

Professor Vladimir Briller is in Vietnam for a week-long training program at Vietnam National University-Ho Chi Minh City (VNUHCM)’s Center for Educational Testing and Quality Assessment, advising educators and university leaders on developing university branding, implementing a credit-hour system, and decision-making based on data.

“I think Vietnam is under a curriculum based on teaching, not on learning,” Briller said. “That means the Ministry of Education and Training prescribes what you teach and not what students learn and will be able to do. This is a major crisis.”

Briller, considered an international expert on education, formerly served as a senior consultant on higher education for the World Bank in Russia and Azerbajjan; for the United States Agency for International Development in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan; and for the Asia Development Bank in Kyrgyzstan.

“In those countries and in Vietnam also, you approach the credit-hour system as the number of hours of exposure students have to teachers. You have students meet three hours a week, and then it’s a three-credit course per semester,” he said. “In fact, credit hours [should reflect] the units of knowledge, of competence.”

The credit-hour system tracks students’ progress toward graduation by crediting the completion of required and elective courses. In Vietnam, the debate has been focused on whether universities, as opposed to the education ministry, should be given absolute authority to design their curriculums.

“You must provide clear outcomes for everything that a university does,” he said. “For example, if you want to train an engineer and that each engineer must have these 12 competencies to graduate, that does not mean 12 credits. It’s what the engineering student can do.”

Briller says Vietnam’s goal to create a first-rate university by 2020 could be possible if the country follows an example like that of Singapore with its National University of Singapore.

Singapore invested an enormous amount of money into that school, he says, and gives that university total freedom to make its own decisions – including curriculums, budgets, and administration.

“Singapore [invited] top professors [to its] university. It has committed to paying them any money they want and provides scholarships for the most talented students in the region,” he says. “I am not just talking about perhaps investing US$1 billion; I’m talking about giving universities freedom but also that freedom has to come with accountability.”

The Center for Educational Testing and Quality Assessment was established in 1999 by VNU-HCM in an effort to help VNU-HCM university members with accreditation at program and institutional levels and conducting research on testing and examinations.

VietNamNet/TN

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