LookAtVietnam – Universities say assistant professors are vital and yet most have to do without, as budgets are limited.

Nguyen Phuong Nam, MA, assistant professor of the HCM City University of Economics and Finance

“There were many interesting notes in the students reports, which even postgraduates hadn’t thought of. For example, visitors always like turning left to seek the goods they need,” said Nguyen Thanh Binh, an assistant professor of the Economics Faculty of the university.

In the last two years, the HCM City Economics and Finance University has used assistant professors in all teaching subjects. They take legal students to courts to attend hearings and finance students to stock markets.

Nguyen Ngoc Ngan, a finance student, said that assistant professors help them in practice hours by providing answers to students’ questions, helping lecturers mark students’ papers and giving career guidance.

Dr Duong Tan Diep, a senior lecturer of the HCM City University for Economics and Finance, said training quality will not be improved without assistant professors. That’s why the university has decided to use assistant professors, despite higher training costs.

Nguyen Van Duong, deputy head of the Training Division of the HCM City Economics University, said assistant professors have been playing a limited role in big universities. They simply spend time learning how to teach subjects to prepare them to become “official” lecturers after two years.

Meanwhile, the majority of universities do not have assistant professors, simply because they do not have a large enough budget.

Duong said tuition fees now are 2.4 million dong per annum and the tuition is just big enough to pay for official lecturers.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, head of the Training Division of the HCM City Forestry and Agriculture University, also said that if the university uses assistant professors, training costs would be twice the current level. Therefore, only rich universities, which are determined to upgrade the training quality, have assistant professors.

VietNamNet/Dan tri