VietNamNet Bridge – From 2005-2007, Vietnam established 97 new universities and colleges. Some 40 more universities have been established since 2007. Meanwhile, the number of lecturers for universities remains modest.

Prof Pham Phu at HCM City National University has warned that the current growth rate of the number of lecturers will not catch up with the sharp increase in the number of universities.

Vietnam now has some 1.5mil students and over 53,000 lecturers, or one lecturer for every 28 students. Vietnam is striving to have 4.3-4.5mil students by 2020, which means that it needs to have 220,000 more lecturers at least by that time – 12,000 lecturers every year.

Phu said that while Vietnam is allowing the establishment of a lot of universities, it is not making sufficient preparation in terms of staffs for universities. As a result, newly set up people-founded universities hire lecturers from state-owned universities.

In general, people-founded universities are finding it hard to get lecturers, especially provincial universities.

Ngo Tan Luc, Headmaster of Tien Giang University, said that every year, the university has to spend a lot of money to invite 30-40 doctors and professors from universities in HCM City to give lectures at the university. Luc said that the expenditures for the high-grade experts are always double or triple that paid to local lecturers.

University lecturers have become more ‘expensive’ nowadays. In general, they are listed on the pay-roll of state-owned universities, and after fulfilling duties at their universities, they give extra lectures at other universities to get extra earnings.

Under the current regulations, universities must have 30% regular lecturers (i.e. lecturers who are listed on the universities’ pay-rolls), but very few universities can meet that requirement. Universities have to show lists of regular lecturers to the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) before their projects on establishing universities can be approved. However, a lot of the names on the lists are ‘borrowed names’.

Thai Ba Can, Headmaster of HCM City Technique Pedagogical University, joked that if MOET spent time checking the lists, it would find the names of some lecturers appearing on lists of two or three universities.

Educators have expressed concerns about the training quality with the limited number of lecturers. As lecturers rush to give extra lectures to get more money, they don’t have time for scientific research and continuing education. Therefore, it remains unclear when Vietnam’s education and training quality will be recognised by the world.

(Source: NLD)