Many of the rejected candidates for professorships and associate professorships were government officials.

However, 53 additional candidates will be added to the list of those officially recognized as meeting the standards for professor (GS) and associate professor (PGS) in the 2017 review.

We will take action against schools that provide inaccurate information.

According to an announcement from the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry's Inspectorate's report on the results of the inspection and review of the recognition of candidates meeting the standards for Professor and Associate Professor titles in 2017 shows that 41 candidates will not be recognized because their dossiers do not meet the regulations or they have withdrawn their applications from the list of candidates for the Professor and Associate Professor titles in 2017. The remaining 53 dossiers were concluded by the Ministry's Inspectorate to meet the regulations. (Source: [Information about the Ministry's source])AdolescentAmong the 41 candidates whose applications were rejected were 2 professors and 39 associate professors.

According to the announcement, at the regular government meeting on the morning of April 2nd, the Minister of Education and Training and Chairman of the State Council for Professor Titles, Phung Xuan Nha, reported to the Government on the results of reviewing 94 dossiers of professor and associate professor candidates proposed for recognition in 2017 that were left pending due to suspected failure to meet the required standards or due to complaints. Based on these results, the council will proceed according to regulations by only recognizing candidates who meet the standards. The Ministry will also continue to address educational institutions that incorrectly recognize teaching hours for candidates and will make the findings public.

A representative from the Ministry of Education and Training stated that Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc reaffirmed that the State Council for Professor Titles must be accountable for its decisions to the Government and the Prime Minister in accordance with regulations. The Prime Minister also welcomed and highly appreciated several candidates who voluntarily withdrew their applications to focus on their state management duties.

The Minister of Health is unlikely to be recognized.

According to Professor Bui Van Ga, Vice Chairman of the State Council for Professor Titles, after receiving the official conclusion from the Ministry's Inspectorate, the council will issue a decision to recognize an additional 53 candidates as meeting the standards for Professor and Associate Professor titles in 2017. Thus, in 2017, 1,184 people were recognized as meeting the standards for Professor and Associate Professor titles, reaching a rate of 77% (compared to 75.5% in 2016).

Professor Ga affirmed that the task force, led by the Ministry's Inspectorate in collaboration with the council, worked very responsibly and seriously on each candidate's file. "The task force went to the grassroots level, listened to candidates' explanations, and directly confronted them," Professor Ga said, emphasizing that the task force only reviewed the files to ensure they met the criteria and did not assess the scientific quality of the files.

However, many industry council leaders said they had not yet received official information from the Ministry's inspection agency, so they were unclear which members of their sector had been recognized and which had not.

“In the medical field, 23 candidates had their applications reviewed. During the process of working with the Ministry of Education and Training's task force, 13 applications were deemed acceptable. Of the remaining 10 applications, 2 withdrew, and the Ministry's Inspectorate deemed 8 applications inaccurate. The Medical Council still maintains its opinion to recognize these 8 candidates, as the ‘inaccuracy’ is according to the Ministry's Inspectorate's viewpoint. However, we do not yet have information on the final conclusion,” said Professor Pham Gia Khanh, Chairman of the State Council for Professor Titles in the medical field.

Among the 10 medical candidates most likely to be excluded from the official list of candidates meeting the standards for Professor and Associate Professor in the 2017 review is Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien. Other rejected (and withdrawn) applications from the medical sector were all from Associate Professor candidates, including one who was Ms. Tien's secretary, three who were leaders of departments within the Ministry of Health, two from the Hanoi Center for Preventive Medicine, one working for the Vietnam Education Union, and one from a business.

The contract was for teaching one subject, but the contract was terminated to teach a different subject!

Mr. Nguyen Huy Bang, Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Education and Training and Head of the inspection team for professor and associate professor candidates in 2017, said that the inspection team was divided into 6 groups to go to each institution to verify and work directly with some candidates.

The inspection team focused solely on evaluating the application files and did not have the authority to assess professional competence. The files revealed several issues: According to regulations, the application files of visiting lecturer candidates must include a contract, contract termination agreement, and an evaluation from the principal of the teaching institution. However, some files lacked these, and some even included a contract for one subject but a termination agreement for a different subject. Furthermore, there were cases of creating new files from previous years without proper justification.

There were also candidates who declared a particular textbook in their application and received points; however, upon verification, this textbook had not been selected by the rector. According to the law, a textbook is only recognized when the rector of the higher education institution selects and acknowledges the selection for use.

There are also cases of violations of seniority regulations. For example, the regulations stipulate that the seniority of professors and associate professors must be calculated in teaching hours at the university level, meaning they must teach undergraduate, master's, or doctoral programs, but they declare teaching in training programs. This leads to the conclusion that they do not have enough teaching hours and therefore do not have enough seniority.

According to Mr. Bang, the Inspectorate has recommended that the Ministry urgently finalize and submit to the Prime Minister for promulgation a regulation replacing the Regulation on standards and procedures for appointing and dismissing professors and associate professors issued with Decision No. 174/2008/QD-TTg dated December 31, 2008 and Decision No. 20/2012/QD-TTg dated April 27, 2012 of the Prime Minister, to be applied immediately from the next round of recognition.

Furthermore, it is recommended that the Minister take corrective measures against educational institutions that have not properly implemented regulations on visiting lecturers and have violated regulations in verifying teaching hours for candidates. It is also recommended that the State Council for Professor Titles implement appropriate solutions and learn from the experiences of the institutional and sectoral councils to ensure more accurate assessment and recognition of candidates' qualifications for professorships and associate professorships.