Since 2005, licensing of new universities has been easy and resulted in low training quality, especially at private and local universities, noted the National Assembly’s supervisory report.

Since 2005, licensing of new universities and colleges has been easy and resulted in low training quality, especially at private and local universities, noted the supervisory report of the National Assembly about the establishment, investment and quality of higher education.

Deputies address proposed Law on Food Safety

NA Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children Chair Dao Trong Thi presented its report at an NA meeting on June 7. Deputies spent the whole day discussing the report, talks aired live on VTV.

According to the report, up to 200 of 312 universities and colleges were formed from 2005-2009, including 148 state-owned and 52 private schools. State-owned universities and colleges have modest investment capital and their major income is from school fees. Many universities and colleges were established within a short period of time, so investment in these schools is scattered.

In the last three years, State education spending rose by 20 percent, but investment in higher education accounted for just 10-20 percent of the total.

Many universities and colleges don’t meet fundamental standards on quality and quantity of lecturers, equipment, area or facilities. Up to 20 percent of newly-established and upgraded universities and colleges must rent offices and classes and lack areas for student activities. These institutions also lack lecturers and most private schools hire retired teachers. Many schools don’t have land, offices or classrooms, but they are not punished.

Notably, many schools take advantage of land-related incentives for education to do real estate business, not invest in training and upgrading their facilities. Equipment for testing and laboratories are outdated and inadequate. Some schools claim to offer hi-tech training, but they don’t have laboratories.

At Can Tho Medical University, each student could practice on one frog and five students on one dog in the past, but now ten students share one frog and 30 use one dog for practice.

From 1987 to 2009, the total number of students in Vietnam increased by 13-fold, but the number of lecturers rose by only three times. Many teachers have 1000 classes a year, four times over the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) regulations.

MoET aims to have at least 50 percent of university lecturers with doctorates, but right now the ratio is only 10.16 percent.

“If the current situation of higher education in Vietnam is maintained, it will be inadequate for the requirements of international integration,” the report warned.

The NA Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children asked the Government to prioritize the establishment of private universities and colleges with abundant investment capital, to establish provincial state-owned schools once budgets are sufficient to ensure quality, to restrict irregular training models and to speed up quality verification for universities and colleges.

The committee also recommended that the Government to make verification public for use in classifying classify universities and colleges, to enforce inspections and take severe measures against schools that break the rules, especially private schools that have operated for over ten years and still don’t have their own classes and facilities.

The committee also proposed that the NA issue a resolution on higher education and quickly compile the Law on Higher Education.

Le Nhung