"Giving autonomy in enrollment to schools is inevitable"

The policy of giving autonomy in enrollment to universities and colleges of the Ministry of Education and Training is receiving high support from school leaders and education experts.

“That is an inevitable rule,” said Mr. Le Quoc Hanh, former Head of the Training Department of Hanoi University. According to Mr. Hanh, the Ministry’s holding of enrollment data and the regulation of using a common enrollment software has turned all of the more than 400 universities and colleges into one school.

“I am very happy that the Ministry has listened to the opinions of the public, teachers, especially those working in admissions,” said Mr. Hanh.

This is also shared by Mr. Dam Quang Minh, Principal of FPT University. Mr. Minh believes that allowing schools to be autonomous in recruiting students is a mandatory trend. “There needs to be a change to be more open in the issue of considering admission results, to reduce the heat of this issue, which happens every year,” Mr. Minh said.

According to Mr. Minh, the increase in the number of universities has given students more choices. Accordingly, when the market is wider, students have better choices. Schools are having to find ways to improve themselves to attract students.

The Ministry of Education and Training hopes to overcome the limitations of the 2015 enrollment period. (Photo: Pham Mai/Vietnam+)

As someone who has repeatedly recommended that the Ministry give schools autonomy in enrollment, Mr. Le Huu Lap, former Deputy Director of the Academy of Posts and Telecommunications Technology, said that this is a reasonable policy.

“From now on, the Ministry should only regulate the admission time and the threshold to ensure input quality. The admission time should be shortened for each round, about a week. The test scores should be valid for one year and there should be two admission rounds each year. There should also be plans to overcome the situation of fake candidates,” Mr. Lap proposed.

Also discussing the change in admission methods, Can Tho University President Do Van Xe suggested that the Ministry should use shared data for admission. Then, candidates will not need to submit their score reports and will not have to withdraw their applications.

Meanwhile, Ho Dac Loc, Principal of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, said that the fact that the above schools set low admission scores is one of the reasons why candidates withdraw and submit their applications in chaos.

“I think the schools in the above group, according to the Ministry's statistics, are about 30 schools, so that candidates have a more accurate basis in considering choosing a school,” said Mr. Loc.

Agreeing with this view, Deputy Minister of Education and Training Bui Van Ga said that in the 2016 enrollment season, the Ministry is considering the option of dividing the enrollment into multiple rounds according to each score level from high to low to reduce risks for candidates and reduce "fake" candidates for schools. In particular, the above-mentioned schools can combine with each other to conduct enrollment using enrollment software and a common database of registered candidates to reduce fake candidates, creating convenience for both candidates and schools.

The Ministry is currently seeking feedback from schools, organizations and individuals to come up with the best university and college admissions plan for 2016. Meanwhile, universities said they have also begun researching their own admissions plans so they can soon announce them to candidates as soon as the Ministry finalizes this issue./.

According to VIETNAM+