Sep 10, 2011

Vietnam - Time to expand our views on education


In Vietnam, it is the mother of all battles that is fought year after year: more than close to a million or more students sit for their university entrance examinations, fighting for a few hundred thousand seats.

This year is no exception.

As many as 1.5 million students have to fight for just over 415,000 seats at higher-education institutions.

In recent years, though, another dimension has been added to the event.

It has also become a competition among non-public universities, many of which do not hesitate to employ some trickery to attract as many students as allowed by the Ministry of Education and Training.

This year it seemed that the race has really heated up. Schools which are newly-built or less known are offering various benefits to attract students, ranging from discounts on tuition to multiple year scholarships.

Some, like Luong The Vinh University in the northern province of Nam Dinh, has offered students VND550,000-1 million (US$26.5-48) in cash if they agree to enroll in the school. Those who introduce students to the school’s enrollment department also receive “brokerage” fees of VND250,000 ($12) per student.

Even though the “commercialization of education” has been greatly lamented lately in Vietnam, it is the first time that such lures have been openly used.

Luong The Vinh University has not been alone in its overboard efforts to attract students, and the nation has watched this process with some anxiety as values long-held sacred began disappearing under the onslaught of commercialization.

However, the matter here isn’t only about commercialization. It isn’t about the legality of methods deployed either, because even if some practices were found to be illegal, it’s very likely that violators are let off with a meager fine. In previous years, no school has ever been forced to close down or suspend admitting students following the exposure of their dubious practices.

The current debate is highlighting one of the major problems that has faced Vietnam’s education sector for years: too many universities are being established while the total quota of students to be admitted to universities increases just slightly every year. In fact, Vietnam now has over 400 universities and colleges compared to 376 recorded in 2009.

Worse still, many of them are allowed to be established without strict control over their quality in terms of lecturers and infrastructure, a problem long pointed out by the local media.

Even though the education ministry acts tough whenever the media exposes a school with dubious quality, the problem is still there and is growing.

One key factor that has been mentioned before but never taken seriously is the obsession of Vietnamese people with university degrees. Any other avenue of education is ignored and used as a last resort.

While some people argue that this is a deep-rooted social consciousness problem that cannot be changed easily, inaction is no longer an option.

The education ministry needs to cooperate with related agencies to question the belief that “university is the only entrance to a successful life.” Many conferences have been held over the years to discuss the problem, but in practice, nothing has really been done so far.

Once this belief is changed and people see vocational training in many areas, especially growth vocations such as computer science, as a viable, respectable option that not only imparts skills, but also opens paths to stable livelihoods, a lot of these questionable practices will disappear.

It would also be an effective way to address the nation’s dearth of skilled workers, and make it a more attractive investment destination.

Thanh Nien News



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