Lecturers at many universities are struggling to earn certificates in
Marxism-Leninism and undergraduate teaching theory in order to continue lecturing
or to keep tenure.
T.M.L., who has taught at a Ho
Chi Minh City public university for nine years, was told at the beginning of
this school year that he would have to hand in a Marxism-Leninism certificate
if he wanted to keep the job.
“I don’t have the certificate
because I obtained my master’s degree in Belgium where such a paper, though a
graduation requirement for graduate students in Vietnam, was not included in my
curricula,” he said.
Another city lecturer who has a
master’s degree in educational psychology granted by a city pedogogical
university is now enrolled in a course in undergraduate teaching theory as
required by her school.
“It is an irony that I am
required to re-educate myself with what I already learned during my college
years,” she said. “What’s more, I have been teaching undergraduate courses for
three years.”
An education ministry official
explained that it is compulsory for a lecturer to get the two certificates if
they are to maintain their tenure.
Pro forma courses
A lecturer complained that the
courses are run as a perfunctory procedure without any real value.
“Course instructors understand
that classes are organized to help college lecturers settle their paperwork
problems so they get on very fast with the lessons,” he said.
Nguyen Phuong, another lecturer,
said frankly that he is attending such a course just to be eligible for an exam
to get tenure, not for the sake of learning itself.
Pursuing a higher teaching course
at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Nguyen
Duy Hai, a lecturer at Van Hien University, located in the southern city, said
that he has signed up for it merely as a formality, instead of an actual
motivation for acquiring new expertise.
Course-takers can check
attendance for each other when their class coincides with lectures at their
schools, Hai said.
He elaborated that academic
standards are frequently compromised in his class, as group work is only done
by one or two people and many of his classmates have even plagiarized final
projects.
T.M.L., the Belgium alumnus,
divulged that many lecturers had scored 7 or 8 (out of 10) on the same project
passed from one to another for many courses.
“That’s pro forma and phony,”
said an expert with the Ho Chi Minh City University of Education.
TUOI TRE
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