After the pilot ends, the university will continue to be autonomous.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam affirmed that official documents will have to be issued to continue implementing university autonomy.

On October 20, the Ministry of Education and Training held a conference to summarize the pilot innovation of the operating mechanism for public higher education institutions in the period 2014-2017. There are 23 public higher education institutions nationwide that are autonomous, of which 12 are over 2-year schools and 11 are under 2-year schools. The schoolsautonomy in the fields of: training and scientific research; organization, personnel; finance.

Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha assessed that the schools selected to pilot university autonomy have had initial successes in attracting students and ensuring revenue...

According to the Ministry of Education's assessment, when autonomous, schools have proactively opened majors and developed training programs according to social needs; teaching methods and content have approached international standards; the proportion of staff and lecturers with academic titles and degrees from master's degree and above has increased...

President of Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics Nguyen Dong Phong affirmed: "Autonomy has brought many innovations to my school that I have never seen in my 42 years working at the school." Without autonomy, the school would have achieved such development, but it would have taken a long time due to lack of investment resources, especially waiting for "licensing".

Mr. Phong cited some of the school's successes after 3 years of autonomy, such as: the number of articles published in ISI and Scopus journals increased from 78 to 137. The school ensured income for lecturers and staff and had certain surpluses.

The principal of Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and representatives of many autonomous pilot schools pointed out that the biggest drawback of this model is the lack of legal framework and that directive documents are often contradictory.

This is also a limitation acknowledged by Minister Phung Xuan Nha. Mr. Nha said that the management mechanism under the parent ministry regime is no longer suitable for the autonomous model. In addition, universities are not fully aware of autonomy, have poor management capacity, and have not ensured publicity, transparency, and accountability to relevant parties... which limits effectiveness. "There are still 4 schools piloting autonomy but have not yet established a University Council," Professor Nha gave an example.

When many universities expressed concern that the pilot autonomy period only had 2 months left, the Minister said he would propose amending and supplementing a number of related laws to create a more complete legal framework for the effective implementation of this model.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam affirmed that university autonomy will continue to be implemented in the coming years.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam affirmed that "university autonomy will not be discussed whether it is necessary or not, but it has been agreed that it must be done; official documents must be issued to continue doing it". He emphasized that autonomy is a necessary attribute of world universities. When implementing it, Vietnam has many difficulties but there is no other way but to do it more strongly.

"If we do not improve the quality of university education, we will not fulfill our responsibilities to the country and society. And if we consider competition with the world, we will lose," said the Deputy Prime Minister.

Mr. Dam believes that university autonomy must first be understood correctly. Autonomy must first be about expertise and academics in teaching and research, eliminating daily intervention and administrative imposition on the internal affairs of schools, thereby creating rights regarding the apparatus and personnel, including establishment, appointment, dismissal, and remuneration.

Financial autonomy, meaning that educational institutions are autonomous in their revenues and expenditures according to legal regulations, is only part of this concept. Previously, school revenues were allocated based on input, number of employees, or registration quotas, regardless of output quality. When autonomous, schools still receive budgets, but they will be assigned tasks and based on educational quality.

According to VNE