Consequences of the widespread opening of universities

On the afternoon of October 1, under the chairmanship of comrade Tran Van Mao - Deputy Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation, the Provincial National Assembly Delegation held a Conference to collect opinions on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Higher Education. Attending the Conference was comrade Nguyen Thi Kim Phung - Director of the Department of Higher Education - Ministry of Education and Training. Photo: Thanh Le

Delegates highly agreed on the necessity of amending and supplementing the Law on Higher Education to resolve shortcomings and create a legal basis for innovation and development of higher education to meet the demand for high-quality human resources to meet the needs of integration and development in the new situation.

Commenting on the draft Law on Higher Education, Ms. Bui Thi Thu Huong - former Vice Chairwoman of the Provincial People's Council expressed her concern that the policy on socialization of higher education should be clearly regulated to develop private schools; schools should not be identified with businesses; education should not be commercialized; the concept of non-profit private higher education institutions and priority policies for this model should be clarified.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Phung - Director of the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Training, explained and clarified the opinions of interested delegates. Photo: Thanh Le

“The university system is still fragmented, the efficiency of private universities is not high. This is an issue that voters have reflected through meetings with voters of National Assembly deputies and People's Councils at all levels. The establishment of too many universities but not being able to enroll students. “The current problem is that we expect to open many universities but want to increase vocational training quotas,” Ms. Huong said.

Commenting on Article 16 of the Law on Higher Education, Ms. Huong suggested that it is necessary to regulate the school council. This draft has more specific and clear regulations than the previous law. "The issue is to clarify the relationship between the school council and the school board and principal. It is necessary to clarify the regulations on the standards for the Chairman of the School Council," Ms. Huong said.

Associate Professor, Dr. Thai Van Thanh - Vice Rector of Vinh University gave comments on the draft Law on Higher Education. Photo by Thanh Le

Speaking at the conference, Ms. Hoang Thi Lien - Permanent Vice President of Nghe An Lawyers Association suggested that the Draft Law should have a regulation on tuition fee ceiling.

The issue of autonomy, according to Ms. Lien, needs to be for schools to be autonomous in line with the general planning and plans of the Government; training in accordance with the labor training needs of society. Because a current reality is the waste in opening schools, training students en masse, without direction, leading to the consequence of widespread unemployment among graduates.

Regarding this issue, Ms. Que Thi Tram Ngoc - Head of Document Drafting Department, Department of Justice reflected on the situation of widespread school opening, the quality of private universities is not uniform, many schools are opened but cannot enroll students.

"The problem arises because there are no students, so many schools recruit students to meet their quotas, and the entrance to some universities is too low, leading to the consequence that the quality of a part of the cadres and civil servants in the administrative apparatus is still limited. Therefore, the draft Law needs to have "rigid" regulations on planning the university network," Ms. Ngoc suggested.

Ms. Bui Thi Thu Huong - former Vice Chairwoman of the Provincial People's Council gave comments on the draft Law on Higher Education. Photo by Thanh Le

Concluding the Conference, Deputy Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation Tran Van Mao acknowledged and highly appreciated the enthusiastic, responsible and intelligent comments of the delegates.

Regarding the delegates' comments, the Provincial National Assembly Delegation will receive and synthesize them to submit to the National Assembly Standing Committee and have comments and discussions at the upcoming 6th session of the 14th National Assembly.