LookAtVietnam – Educators say bad forecasting over demand for higher education has led to the growth of universities but the closure of classes.

Japanese language, post-harvesting technologies and information technology at Hung Vuong University in HCM City, and Chinese studies of the HCM City Foreign Language and Information Technology (Huflit) are facing the same situation.

Nguyen Cao Cuong, head of the Training Division of the HCM City Polytechnique and Technology University admitted only 19 students have registered to study English language and 20 students are studying automatic technology.

The universities, which cannot enroll enough students, have blamed the lack of students on the high entrance mark set by the Ministry of Education and Training for the 2009-2010 school year. However, education experts have pointed out that it is because of too many operational universities and a limited number of students.

Universities and junior colleges (three year schools) have been mushrooming recently and need more and more students to operate. In principle, newly set up universities are less attractive than traditional universities in the eyes of students.

Nguyen Quoc Cuong, an officer of the southern office of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), said that universities, which cannot enroll enough students, are mostly privately founded or the newly established.

Dr Le Thi Thanh Mai, deputy head of the Training Division under the HCM City National University, said most provinces have their own local universities which provide different study options.

In principle, students would prefer to study at central and national universities. However, if they fail entrance exams, they would rather study at local universities than studying at privately founded or private universities in big cities.

Educators have warned that the shortage of students will continue in future years. There are nearly 400 universities and junior colleges nationwide which are providing hundreds of study options.

Meanwhile, the schools set up the courses themselves without checking first to find out if there is a need for them.

In fact, while there are two human resource forecasting centres in the north and south neither have given any reliable predictions which can might have helped universities set up training plans.

Roughly 1.2 million students attended the 2009 university entrance exams and 400,000 students passed. In principle, the 400,000 students would be enough but only if they were equally divided over 380 schools nationwide.

VietNamNet/NLD