Educators have
voiced their worries about the current university enrollment process which has
been described as “running after profit and ignoring the quality of training”.

The
Ministry of Education and Training has been criticized as violating the law
when allowing some state-owned universities to enroll students under the
non-state budget mode. Under the mechanism, the students, who fail the entrance
exams to the universities, still can study at the universities if they pay
money and do not receive subsidies from the state budget.

The
matriculation season for the 2011-2012 academic school has already begun, and
universities have announced their enrolment quotas for the new academic year.
Students have been reassured that the universities’ doors are fully open and
that students will have more opportunities to access higher education. Many
schools plan to increase the number of students to be enrolled this year.
Especially, some “hot” universities have announced a plan to enroll students
under the non-state budget mode.

The
information has pleased students, but has worried educators.

Schools running after profit?

The
Hanoi Medical University, Finance Academy, the Hanoi University for Foreign
Trade and the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology all plan to
enroll students under the non-state budget mode.

The
Hanoi Medical University,
for example, will enroll 200-300 students under the non-state budget status.
The HCM City Medical
University has announced
that it would enroll more than 500 students. Meanwhile, the Hanoi University
for Foreign Trade has announced that it would have 300 seats for students to
study under the non-state budget mode. These will be the students who received
high marks from the university entrance exams but still below the required
marks.

The
above said universities are all popular schools and the demand for studying at
the schools is very high. Therefore, even excellent students may fail exams to
the universities.

However,
Nguoi lao dong newspaper has quoted experts as saying that the non-state budget
enrolment violates the Education Law and does not fit the current situation of Vietnam’s
education.

The
experts said that non-state budget classes once existed at state=owned high
schools. However, such classes then were forced to dissolve after people
realized that they would negatively affect higher education.

Number of universities increase, but
quality does not

The
information that many state-owned universities will enroll students under the
non-state budget mode has specially worried non-state universities. Students
nowadays prefer state-owned schools to non-state owned schools, and they only
choose to study at non-state schools when they fail the exams to state-owned
schools. Therefore, non-state schools fear that they will not be able to enroll
students, if even students who fail exams still have the opportunity to study
at state-owned schools.

Many
educators also think that it is not a good solution to allow popular
universities to enroll students under the non-state budget mode, saying that
this does not fit the current circumstances of Vietnam’s education. If students
flock to state-owned universities, non-state schools will sit idle because they
cannot enroll enough students. Meanwhile, the State is calling for the
socialization of education.

The
educators said that in the policy on socialization of education, the government
stipulates that semi-state owned classes must not exist in state-owned schools.
Therefore, there is no reason for the Ministry of Education and Training to
green light non-state budget classes at state-owned universities.

Source: Nguoi lao dong