'Major surgery' on 140 public universities

According to the general assessment of the Ministry of Education and Training , the current university education system is developing unevenly. Many universities are small in scale, have narrow training fields and operate ineffectively.

The university education market has not been regulated at the macro level; most university education institutions have not clearly defined their school development strategies; the system has not been clearly classified; the leading role of national and regional universities is not clear.

The management model of state agencies is inconsistent and fragmented (under the direct control of many ministries, branches, and localities). There is inequality and lack of transparency in policy mechanisms and allocation of state resources; investment efficiency in higher education is not high; there is no or weak competitive motivation in the system. The Ministry of Education and Training has repeatedly mentioned the "fragmented" state management factor as a prominent cause of the current weaknesses of the higher education network.

"Living hand to mouth"

The country has 26 higher education institutions under the People's Committees of provinces and centrally run cities (collectively called local universities). Most of these schools are small in scale, contributing only 6.3% of the total training scale of university level, 3.5% of masters and 1% of doctorates of the whole system; only 3 schools have a scale of more than 10,000 students, while there are 8 schools with a scale of less than 2,000 students.

Phu Yen University has an enrollment target of 590 in 2025, equivalent to the target of 1 training faculty of a large university. Of the 12 majors of the school, there are 6 pedagogical majors, accounting for nearly 50% of the enrollment target of the whole school. In previous years, pedagogical majors had enough enrollment targets; non-pedagogical majors, including English language, had the number of students enrolling exceeding the target, the remaining majors had enrollment below the target. In particular, the number of students confirming enrollment in the agricultural major is very low, in 2023, 7/50 students enrolled, in 2024, 13/30 students enrolled.

In other local universities, the pedagogical group always meets the required quota, the number of non-pedagogical majors is small (from 3-6 majors) but often does not meet the quota. Without pedagogical majors, local universities basically enroll poorly and struggle to survive. Nam Dinh University of Technical Education has 16 majors and none of them train pedagogical majors. In 2024, the total enrollment target of the school is 800, the number of candidates confirmed to enroll is 331; in 2023, the total target is 770, the number of candidates confirmed to enroll is 270. Among them, the Mold Engineering Technology major (in the Mechanical Engineering Technology major) has had "no" candidates confirmed to enroll for 2 consecutive years. The Computer Science major (a hot major today) in 2023 also has "no" candidates enrolling, in 2024, 1/20 candidates enrolled. 100% of training programs of Nam Dinh University of Technical Education have not met enrollment targets for at least the past 2 years.

Ha Tinh University is also in a similar situation when in 2023 and 2024, only the Primary Education major (the only pedagogical major of the school) out of 12 majors has enough enrollment quota. The Agricultural Economics major has had "no" candidates confirming enrollment for two consecutive years; the Political Science major in 2024 had 4/30 candidates confirming enrollment, in 2023 there were "no" candidates even though there were 30 enrollment quotas; the Finance and Banking major in 2023 had 100 enrollment quotas but also "no" candidates confirming enrollment, in 2024, there were 11/80 candidates confirming enrollment.

Universities under ministries are also struggling. For example, the University of Finance and Accounting (Ministry of Finance) has its main campus in Quang Ngai and a branch in Hue. In 2023 and 2024, the school will not be able to meet its enrollment targets. Many majors have a relatively low number of students, such as International Business (6/25 targets); Business Administration in 2023 will have 18/45 targets and 13/45 targets (2024).

Or like Quang Ninh University of Industry under the Ministry of Industry and Trade. In 2024, this school recruited 771 students but only 222 students were admitted and many majors could not recruit or only had 1 student admitted. In 2023, the school's total revenue was over 30.6 billion VND, of which the budget alone was over 20.5 billion VND.

End fragmentation

Associate Professor Dr. Do Van Dung, former Principal of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education, said that many local universities and colleges have low training quality, incompetent lecturers combined with poor facilities, and graduates do not meet the needs of businesses, leading to unemployment. However, the arrangement must ensure connectivity between university education and vocational education, support credit transfer, and dual training to meet the needs of labor quickly.

Mr. Dung proposed merging small universities and colleges into one large school, prioritizing economic regions, maintaining the core curriculum and integrating vocational training; prioritizing mergers by economic regions. District vocational training centers should be transferred to the Department of Education and Training for management, organized into commune/ward clusters for short-term training. Weak facilities should be dissolved, lecturers and students should be transferred to other places, and facilities should be reused for community training.

Candidates learn about university admission information in 2025. Photo: HOA BAN

National Assembly delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga said that in order to research and arrange schools in a convenient and effective manner, it is necessary to pay attention to some basic principles such as taking learners as the center, not reducing the opportunity to go to school. Standardization - decentralization - accountability. Ensuring fairness and integration... From there, we should focus on 4 steps to ensure low risks, clear costs and efficiency including: survey - mapping needs, building a minimum set of criteria; classifying - arranging, keeping core schools, maintaining necessary schools, merging vocational centers - continuing education; ensuring accompanying services such as school buses, boarding schools, teacher and lecturer training; monitoring - publicly reporting by access index, attendance rate, feedback from parents, students and pupils.

The Ministry of Education and Training has repeatedly mentioned the “fragmented” state management factor as a prominent cause of the current weaknesses of the university education network. Minister Nguyen Kim Son affirmed that, similar to the previous merger of provinces and cities, we do not need to ask the question “should or should not” but must definitely reorganize educational institutions, this is an order.

“The benefits of the arrangement will be to focus resources on upgrading facilities, improving teaching quality, and more effective management. However, it is also necessary to anticipate difficulties that may arise in the arrangement to have appropriate solutions,” said Ms. Nga.

Source: https://tienphong.vn/dai-phau-140-truong-dai-hoc-cong-lap-post1779664.tpo