VietNamNet Bridge – MOET’s inspectors have found that the training programmes offered by provincial ‘continuing education centres’ in association with universities and colleges are of uncertain quality.

The conditions at the Hai Duong province Continuing Education Centre turn out to be better than at many of the other centres that provinces are establishing. “Most of the training partners are only nominally qualified to sign agreements to deliver training, while their material facilities are very poor,” said Pham Ngoc Truc, Deputy Chief Education Inspector. “Therefore, most of the training schools have to rent premises for classrooms and many are not up to university training standards.”

The An Giang province Continuing Education Centre now has nearly 5,000 students following 12 different associated training programmes, who have to go to rented classrooms rather than the classrooms of the centre. The Kontum province Continuing Education Centre has 17 associated training programmes, but it can provide only eight percent of the total classroom area needed.

At the Tien Giang province Continuing Education Centre, there are only three staff who are managing 43 classes under the joint training programmes with nearly 3,000 students.

While each of centres manages several thousands students, they do not have books that provide guidance on student management, curriculum and lecturer management. Under the current regulations, only provincial continuing education centres are allowed to run associated training programmes. However, in fact, classes have been set up in districts as well in order to attract as many students as possible.

The quality of instruction varies widely

The MoET Inspectors found that many universities and junior colleges have been associating with organizations, government agencies and companies which have neither the qualifications to organize training courses nor authority to do so. The Trade Union University has been associating with local labour federations, while the Hanoi Law University, HCM City Open University and University of Culture have been associating with local education offices and centres run by the Association for the Encouragement of Learning (Hoi Khuyen Mai) to open training courses.

Asked why there has been such rapid growth of associated training programmes, Truc said that universities have been put under the pressure of expanding the scope of training to earn more money.

“Tuition levels have not changed since 1998, while the salaries of lecturers have been raised continuously, which has forced schools to expand their scope of training to get more money to cover their expenses,” Truc said.

Meanwhile, universities can hardly expand further on their campuses in big cities because the demand for in-service training has become saturated there. Therefore, the universities are eager to cooperate with organizations in other cities and provinces to open training courses

Truc admitted the problems in the associated training programmes. As many schools want to carry out associated training programmes, they have to compete with each other. Because the competition is fierce, schools have to offer easy courses and loosen the management over the training quality in order to attract more students.

VietNamNet/TT