LookAtVietnam – Students in provinces and rural areas do not want to study at local universities, even though studying there would allow them to get a university degree for cheaper.

Nguyen Thi Hoa in Ha Nam province failed the exam to get into the journalism faculty of the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Hoa took the D1 group university entrance exam (mathematics, literature and English) in July and got 16 marks.

Hoa said that she is surfing the Internet everyday these days to seek information about universities which are enrolling students under their second choice (the students who fail exams for one university still have a chance to be enrolled in another university if they have the marks required by the university).

Hoa has not registered to study at Ha Hoa Tien University which is located near her house, though the university requires 13 marks only from students. Hoa said that she would not have many opportunities to find a job if she graduated from a local university.

The way of thinking is also that of many other students from provinces and rural areas. Hoang Dinh Tung from Ninh Binh province failed the exam for the University of Transport, but he has no intention to register to study at Hoa Lu University, near his home. Tung is seeking opportunities to study at state-owned universities which are enrolling students under the second choice.

Local universities meet difficulties every year in enrolling enough students, even though the Ministry of Education and Training allows them to apply a flexible scheme to enroll enough students.

Head of the Training Division under Yersin University Phan Nam said that the university has been applying the scheme since its establishment in 2004, but it never enrolls more than 80% of its targeted number of students.

Head of the Training Division under Tay Nguyen University Nguyen Van Hoa has complained that enrolment has never been as tough as this year. Some study branches had several hundred applicants, but none got the floor mark (the floor mark, set by the Ministry of Education and Training, is the minimum mark students must have in order to enroll in a university).

Students turning their backs on local universities, why?

Hoa has every reason to believe that she would not be able to find a job after she graduated from a local university. The training quality of local universities remains a question mark for students and employers.

A lot of local universities advertise that they have qualified lecturers and that they can ensure the high quality of training. However, in fact, each of the universities has only one or two PhDs on their payrolls. Meanwhile, they hire visiting lecturers from big state-owned universities in Hanoi or HCM City.

Doubts have also been raised over the qualifications of the ‘future teachers’, as the required marks for students of pedagogical universities are very low. Students, who will become teachers in the future to teach students, only have to have 13.5 marks to be eligible to be enrolled in Hung Vuong University’s mathematics and physics faculties. Quang Binh University only requires 13 marks from the students for mathematics and physics.

However, the existing problems, as admitted by an official of the Ministry of Education and Training, cannot be settled overnight.

VietNamNet/SVVN