Young lecturers complain that the current system does not
encourage them to conduct scientific research.

Thanh, a social sciences lecturer of one of the most prestigious universities in
Hanoi, related that he has to work 10 hours per day, but his income from both
teaching and scientific research is modest, at five million dong a month.

Thanh said that in general, he receives two million dong for writing a paper on
a special subject at the ministerial level. The work takes him six months and in
general, writing special papers brings less money than doing a scientific
research project. In principle, he can get six million dong for a
university-level research work. However, he has to spend money on the research
work, therefore, the real sum of money he can pocket is much lower. On average,
he receives 5.5 million dong a month from scientific research works at different
levels.

“Young lecturers and the ones, who do not have the titles of PhD or professors,
do not have many opportunities to become engaged in scientific research
projects,” he said.

“The well budgeted projects, including the ones at the state’s level, funded
with one billion dong or more from the state budget, will never fall into the
hands of young lecturers,” Thanh said, adding that this is also the reason why
he does not want to reveal the name of the university where he is working for.

In general, young lecturers can join big-scaled scientific research projects,
but they can only focus on small specific subjects and get “trifle”. Thanh
affirmed that young lecturers are capable of undertaking many projects, but they
will never get such opportunities, until they have doctorates or professorship.

With a total income of five million dong a month, a lot of young lecturers have
to give up the job, because they cannot wait until they become “old soldiers” in
the field, or long serving staff members.

When asked why many people still want to become university lecturers, though
many others give up the job, Thanh said that only the lecturers, who do not have
families, love the work of teaching and want to take a job which allows them to
manage their time, want to become university lecturers.

“Anyway, the environment at universities proves to be wild and less thorny, and
lecturers do not have to struggle hard to scramble for fame and wealth.
Therefore, young people still want to become lecturers,” he explained.

5 researchers in every 100 lecturers

The reports released by 34 out of 180 universities showed that in 2006-2009, the
universities carried out 248 research projects at the state level with the total
cost of 136 billion dong. As such, every university has 800 million dong for
making scientific research every year

Meanwhile, commenting about the quality of scientific research projects, Deputy
Minister of Education and Training Tran Quang Quy, said that universities still
have not had many products that can meet the national quality. The current
overly high ratio of students per lecturer has been cited as the main reason
behind the modest number and the low quality of scientific research projects.
The number of students has increased by 13 times in comparison with 10 years
ago, while the number of lecturers has not increased at all. The current ratio
is 30 students per one lecturer.

As for the scientific research projects at the state’s level, there are only 4.9
lecturers doing scientific research out of every 100 lecturers. The lowest ratio
belongs to the universities belonging to local authorities (0.55 percent), while
the highest ratio belongs to polytechnical and technology universities.

As for the scientific research projects at the ministerial level, the figures
are between 1.22 percent and 12 percent. As such, there are less than 10
researchers for every 100 lecturers.

The statistics showed that the budgets for the scientific research projects at
the state’s level are the biggest, but the projects have the lowest number of
lecturers. University lecturers join in many university-level projects, but
every such project can get 10 million dong only.

Tu Uyen – Thanh Chung