'PhD manufacturing plant' causes public uproar

A Facebook user gave an analysis of the PhD mill with a productivity of 3 hours and 55 minutes per day in 2015, which surprised many people.

The information was analyzed by Facebook users from the website of the Academy of Social Sciences, headquartered in Hanoi. Accordingly,Statistics from the beginning of 2016 to the beginning of April showed that 58 PhDs were successfully defended (productivity of 1 day, 1 hour and 15 minutes to produce one PhD).

Believing that the above statistics may not reflect the whole year's picture because "this is probably the time of year when PhD defenses are concentrated", the above Facebook user commented:Statistics for the whole year 2015 for more accurate figures.

Specifically, in 2015, from January 1 to December 31, the Academy of Social Sciences produced 165 PhDs. If only counting working days, the productivity in 2015 was 3 hours and 55 minutes per day to produce one PhD.

The 2016 doctoral training enrollment target at this facility is 350. The 2015 enrollment target is also 350."With this target, in a few years, if we calculate the loss of 50 PhD students, we will probably produce 300 PhDs a year, which means we will very quickly exceed the target of producing one PhD in less than a working day," he commented.

Several individuals successfully defended their doctoral theses in 2016.

The above information quickly received thousands of likes and shares. A famous professor sadly said,While it is increasingly difficult to get a PhD in natural sciences and technology, and many places still require international publications, social sciences and humanities (not to mention security and defense fields) are becoming more and more lenient and inflationary. A few years later, these PhDs will become associate professors and professors and will hold key leadership positions from local to central levels.

"If you do a PhD like this just for pure scientific research, it's just a waste of money, but if you do it to become a leader, it will be a disaster for the country," the professor said.

Some topics that Facebook users have dissected and deemed unworthy of a doctoral thesis are:"Characteristics of communication with the people of the Chairman of the Commune People's Committee", "Legal Status of the President of the United States of America", "Interest in practicing pedagogical skills of college students", "Flattery in Vietnamese",or "Adaptation to teaching activities of new primary school teachers"...

Responding to the press, GS Nguyen Xuan Thang, President of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, said that this is the defense period of 44 majors. After 3 years of writing theses, the doctoral students are due for defense.In this batch, each major only has 1-2 theses defended, some majors have no one.

With some topics considered unworthy, Mr. Thang explained,It is because of people's perception. For a long time, society still thought that doctoral theses were about esoteric things, but now, theses have gone into practical topics for life.

According to VNE