LookAtVietnam – Vietnam now has 376 universities and junior colleges, but it has only 320 lecturers who have PhDs and fewer than 2,000 associate professors.

According to the ministry, a lot of non-state universities are now ‘borrowing’ most of the lecturers they need, while they only have several permanent lecturers.

However, lacking lecturers is not only the problem of non-state or newly established universities, but of state-owned universities as well.

By August 10, 2009, the total number of permanent lecturers of all universities and junior colleges had reached 61,190. The figure represents an increase of 5,000 lecturers in comparison with the 2007-2008 school year. However, there has been a decline in the quality of lecturers.

The number of lecturers who have PhD degrees at universities and junior colleges now account for 13.86 percent of total lecturers, lower than the 14.33 percentage in the 2007-2008 school year. Now there are only 6,217 lecturers across the country who have PhD degrees.

There are 376 universities and junior colleges, but there are only 320 lecturers who are professors and less than 2,000 lecturers are associate professors.

Director of the University Education Department under MOET Tran Thi Ha has also stated that many universities are seriously lacking key staffs who have a lot of teaching experience and high qualifications in their fields.

While universities are seriously lacking lecturers, they are still undertaking the training of irregular training classes which gather 900,000 students.

MOET has also pointed out big problems in joint training programmes carried out by universities and junior colleges.

Most universities now have joint training programmes, including ones which do not have good material facilities and required conditions for training. Especially, according to MOET, the HCM City Economics University, Da Lat University, Nha Trang University and Can Tho University have joint training programmes on a very big scale.

Nha Trang University has been organising joint programmes in training accountants, a study branch in which it does not have advantages, and many students, exceeding the university’s capability, according to Chief Education Inspector Nguyen Van Chien.

As education institutions are seriously lacking lecturers, students have to have lessons in accordance with the schedule of… lecturers. Philosophy, for example, which needs to be taught in 60 hours, is studied in five days by students of the joint training programme of the HCM City University of Education and Tien Giang Continuation Education Centre.

Meanwhile, students of the joint training programme of the HCM City Economics University and Long An Continuation Education Centre are learning philosophy in 3.5 days. The students of the programme are learning informatics (60 hours in the curriculum) in 3.5 days, while learning probability mathematics in three days.

VietNamNet/TP