Ministry of Education and Training officially tightens doctoral training

The Ministry of Education and Training has just officially issued the Regulations on enrollment and training for doctoral degrees.

The new regulations have added issues related to the responsibility of training institutions in managing graduate students, the responsibility of the Thesis Evaluation Council, of the supervisor and the graduate student in case of complaints about the content and quality of the thesis.

Candidates for doctoral training must be the author of 01 article or report related to the intended research field published in a scientific journal or conference proceedings...

PhD admissions can be held one or more times a year.

The Regulation aims to improve the quality of doctoral training in the country, create conditions for integration with doctoral training in the region and the world; promote the autonomy of higher education institutions based on the specific conditions of each school and each industry; enhance accountability, publicity and transparency of the entire doctoral training process to create trust from society, employers and employees in the quality of doctors after graduation.

Accordingly, the new regulations have a concise structure, are framework regulations (minimum regulations), on that basis, doctoral training institutions must develop detailed regulations suitable to the conditions of each school, with specific requirements of each training sector but must not be lower than the regulations of this regulation to ensure the consistency of the system as well as the "reputation and name" of each training institution in selecting, training and granting doctoral degrees.

The new regulations have changed the regulations on candidates, postgraduates, lecturers, instructors, admissions, training organization processes, doctoral thesis defense, extension, assessment and granting of degrees compared to the regulations of previous regulations, creating conditions for the management and supervision of the training process of training institutions and competent authorities in the direction of administrative reform.

Reduce many cumbersome procedures, formal regulations, and minimize administrative procedures according to Decision No. 418/QD-TTg dated March 17, 2016 approving the simplification plan for a group of administrative procedures related to enrollment and training for doctoral degrees of the Prime Minister.

In addition to the regulation that the head of the doctoral training institution can decide to choose the appropriate admission method (exam, selection or a combination of both) or that doctoral admission can now be organized from 01 to many times a year, the new regulation has improved the regulations on foreign language proficiency, proof of ability, and scientific research experience for candidates, graduate students, lecturers and supervisors compared to previous regulations.

PhD students must publish the research results of their thesis in scientific journals listed in the ISI-Scopus journals list.

In this regulation, foreign languages ​​are identified as an indispensable support tool for graduate students in the process of studying and scientific research. Therefore, candidates must have a certain level of foreign language proficiency (especially English) to ensure that they can research and refer to foreign documents during the process of studying, scientific research and completing the thesis.

In addition, the regulations also require graduate students to publish the research results of their thesis in scientific journals listed in the ISI-Scopus journals or report in the proceedings of international peer-reviewed conferences or in foreign peer-reviewed scientific journals before the thesis is approved by the professional unit.

Regarding the standards of lecturers and instructors, the new regulations stipulate that lecturers teaching courses in the doctoral training program must have presided over or are presiding over scientific and technological tasks at the grassroots level or higher, or have participated in scientific and technological tasks at the ministerial level or higher; and instructors must have presided over or are presiding over scientific and technological tasks at the grassroots level or higher.

Evidence of the supervisor's scientific research must also be demonstrated by the fact that they are the main author of articles or works published in journals listed in the ISI-Scopus journals list or a reference book chapter with an ISBN code issued by foreign publishers or in the proceedings of international peer-reviewed conferences.

The regulations also stipulate that independent supervisors must be permanent staff of the training institution or foreign scientists or Vietnamese scientists working abroad who have a teaching or scientific research contract with the training institution. Each graduate student will have a maximum of two supervisors, of which at least one must be a permanent lecturer or researcher of the training institution. The standards for main supervisors and secondary supervisors are also clearly defined in the case of co-supervision.

The total doctoral training time in the new regulations is regulated according to the Law on Higher Education, in accordance with the National Education System Framework approved by the Prime Minister in Decision No. 1981/QD-TTg dated October 18, 2016, ensuring that doctoral students complete the minimum amount of study and the output standards reach Level 8 of the National Qualifications Framework issued with Decision No. 1982/QD-TTg dated October 18, 2016 of the Prime Minister.

Doctoral training is organized in the form of formal education. Doctoral students must spend at least 12 months of continuous full-time study at the training institution within the first 24 months from the date of the decision to recognize the doctoral student.

To ensure that individuals who wish to study at the doctoral level have time to prepare professionally and in foreign languages, and that doctoral training institutions must have a direction to invest in conditions to ensure quality (in terms of facilities and human resources) to implement the above changes, the new doctoral training regulations have a transitional provision stipulating the international publication roadmap for both supervisors and doctoral students in two stages:

From the effective date of the regulation until December 31, 2018 and from January 1, 2019 for both highly integrated industries and those affected by specific economic, political, cultural and social factors of Vietnam.

According to Dantri