Minister of Education and Training: Determined to re-plan teacher training schools

Faced with low admission scores to teacher training schools, Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha said the Ministry will decide to re-plan teacher training schools.

This year's admission season, while the benchmark scores of many top universities and many majors have increased sharply, the benchmark scores of some pedagogical colleges are very low, with some pedagogical colleges even announcing admission for candidates with less than 10 points/3 subjects. This makes many people worry about the quality of the future teaching staff.

This issue heated up the Conference on the Summary of the 2016-2017 school year and the directions and tasks for the 2017-2018 school year of universities and pedagogical schools held on the morning of August 11 in Hanoi.

Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha speaks at the Conference.

Re-planning of teacher training colleges across the country

Speaking at the conference, Minister Phung Xuan Nha said that public opinion should have a comprehensive and thorough view of the low admission scores for teacher training colleges. Because if analyzed, not all teacher training majors this year have very low admission scores. There are majors with quite high or relatively high admission scores, but there are also majors with low scores, especially in colleges that train teachers.

Through monitoring actual admissions, the majority of admitted candidates have higher exam scores than the admission scores announced by the school.

"The Ministry of Education and Training is resolutely planning teacher training colleges across the country. However, this is an issue related to many policies not only belonging to the Ministry of Education and Training but also to many other ministries and sectors. Planning the teacher training college system requires time and a process, not just within 1-2 years.

“At the beginning of reform, touching anything creates many different perceptions. There will certainly be some initial fluctuations, but after that, all issues will stabilize and improve with the determination of the entire industry,” Minister Phung Xuan Nha affirmed.

The Minister of Education and Training said that the Ministry will have separate working sessions with teacher training colleges to make appropriate calculations. In particular, the planning of the teacher training college network will be prioritized immediately. There will be central schools, branch schools and satellite schools.

“The education sector, if it wants to improve the quality of input, must learn from the experience of the police and military sectors, which are to assign annual quotas, have preferential policies on tuition fees, and be assigned jobs after graduation. Only then will the input be high. However, the input score is only one factor. The process of selecting teacher candidates for teacher training colleges must pay attention to professional aptitude and pay attention to the capacity and qualities of teachers. No matter what, we must make teacher candidates feel proud when entering teacher training colleges,” Minister Phung Xuan Nha emphasized.

Will strongly innovate university governance

Regarding university autonomy, the Minister said that schools must consider autonomy as the destination to improve quality, not just a financial issue. Instead of granting state budget grants in an administrative manner, they will grant them according to tasks based on output quality and without distinction between public and private.

From now on, schools must strongly innovate university governance. If schools want to develop, they must innovate their governance thinking, not manage as usual. The Ministry is developing standards for principals and school board chairmen, from which a brief training program will be developed so that principals and school board chairmen can self-study to meet governance requirements.

Looking back at the recent university entrance exam, the Minister said that one of the reasons for the increase in fake candidates was that candidates did not have enough information. Therefore, it is time for schools to change their perception when setting enrollment targets and providing admissions counseling.

With only 3 points/subject, candidates can study at Bac Ninh Pedagogical College.

From now on, universities will be responsible for their own "input". Therefore, it is necessary to consider what majors the market needs and which segments are suitable for admissions consulting. In particular, a lot of time is spent on career counseling for students to suit the needs of the labor market.

The Minister also informed that recently the Ministry of Education and Training has focused on investing in developing job support centers and forecasting labor market needs to help schools have comprehensive information.

However, according to the Minister, each school must still proactively research the market because each school has its own segment. From the research, schools will make appropriate adjustments to the content, curriculum, and training professions.

Sharing the difficulties of higher education today, the Minister emphasized that we are in a transitional period, and since it is a transitional period, we must accept the difficulties and fluctuations, but if there is no change, it cannot be called innovation. Therefore, there needs to be a shared responsibility between the Ministry and higher education institutions.

“The policy is that by 2020 all schools will have to be autonomous. From now until then, the Ministry will coordinate to implement and remove difficulties for schools. Any problems under the authority of the Ministry will be immediately resolved. For issues beyond its authority, the Ministry will consult with ministries, branches and report to the Government. The responsibility of universities is not to sit and wait but to be proactive in taking reasonable and sustainable steps towards autonomy,” Minister Phung Xuan Nha emphasized.

According to VOV