New regulations on opening training majors, suspending university level enrollment

The Ministry of Education and Training has just issued a circular stipulating the conditions, procedures, and processes for opening training majors, suspending enrollment, and revoking decisions on opening university-level training majors. This circular takes effect from October 23, 2017, and replaces the regulations in Circular No. 08/2011/TT-BGDDT of the Ministry of Education and Training.

New majors must have at least 10 full-time lecturers.

Accordingly, the circular stipulates that training institutions wishing to open university-level training programs must ensure certain conditions. The registered training program must be suitable to the needs of society and learners; suitable to the human resource requirements of the locality, region, and the whole country; suitable to the functions and tasks of the training institution. The opening of training programs has been determined in the direction and development plan of the training institution.

Candidates admitted to university.

The name of the registered training major must be in the List of Level IV Education and Training as prescribed. In case the registered training major is not in the List of Training (called a new major), the training institution must clarify: Scientific arguments, social needs for this new major; training practices and experiences of some countries in the world along with at least 2 reference training programs of foreign universities that have been recognized by competent authorities for quality or permitted to implement and grant degrees (except for majors that are only trained in Vietnam or majors related to security and defense).

The team of lecturers and researchers must ensure the quantity, quality, qualifications and structure to organize training, not overlapping with the lecturers who are the conditions for university level training of other majors being trained. Of which, there must be at least 1 doctor (PhD) in the same major responsible for presiding over, organizing and implementing the training program and committing to ensure the quality of training before the training institution and society.

Specifically, there must be at least 10 full-time lecturers with a master's degree (MSc) or higher in the same or similar field to the registered training field, including at least 1 PhD and 4 MScs, or 2 PhDs and 2 MScs in the same field registered for training; except for fields in the group of foreign languages ​​and cultures (except English, Russian, French, German, Chinese); health; and arts.

Full-time lecturers teach at least 70% of the training program; the remaining knowledge is taught by guest lecturers (domestic and foreign) who have signed a guest teaching contract with the training institution. Full-time and guest lecturers must have expertise appropriate to the content of the courses they are assigned to teach.

In case of implementing training at a branch, the branch must ensure at least 40% of the number of permanent lecturers. For non-public training institutions, at least 40% of permanent lecturers teaching the registered training major must be of working age.

For new majors that do not have domestically trained Masters or PhDs, if there are not enough full-time lecturers with the same qualifications as prescribed, they can be replaced by Masters or PhDs in related majors. These lecturers must have at least 5 years of university-level teaching experience and have at least 2 published scientific works in the field of the registered training major within 5 years from the date the training institution registers to open the training major.

Suspend recruitment if the organization recruits and trains outside the permitted location

The Circular of the Ministry of Education and Training also stipulates that training institutions will be suspended from enrolling students in training programs when one of the following cases occurs: Not ensuring one of the conditions for opening a training program; organizing enrollment and training outside the location permitted to organize training activities; violating the provisions of the law on education and being punished to the extent of having to suspend enrollment; other cases according to the provisions of the law.

The Ministry of Education and Training shall revoke the decision to open a university-level training program for training institutions when one of the following cases occurs: Committing fraud to open a university-level training program; seriously violating regulations on enrollment, management, and training organization; the suspension period for enrollment expires without resolving the cause leading to the suspension; violating the provisions of the law on education and being punished to the extent of having to revoke the decision to open a program; other cases as prescribed by law.

According to Dantri