Vietnam - Non-state owned schools require high tuitions, offer low quality training

VietNamNet Bridge – The biggest worry for the students who choose non-state owned schools to follow university education is the high tuition.

The latest survey by the Non-state owned School Association shows that there are more poor students at non-state owned schools than at state owned schools. This has been explained by the fact that people-founded schools always try to attract students by offering scholarships, preferences and require low exam marks.

State owned schools, in general, set low requirements on students, but always set high tuition levels.

Non-state owned schools struggle to survive

While state owned schools receive 70 percent of total training expenses from the State, non-state owned schools do not get any support from the State. Therefore, the schools need to set up the tuition levels high enough to allow them to cover expenses and make profit. Collecting tuition is the matter of life and death for people founded schools.

The people founded schools with powerful financial capability would make heavy investment in the first years of operation to build up their brands, accepting loss when offering tuition remission and full scholarships to attract more students.

The Bac Ha International University this year collects 15 million dong a year, a 3 million dong decrease over the previous school year. The Huu Nghi University of Technology and Management has lowered the tuition for economics relating majors by 4 million dong to 16 million dong, and reduced the tuitions for other majors to 8.5 million dong.

Other schools have offered full scholarship, or reduced the tuition by 80 percent for the four-year study at the schools for some students. The Hai Phong People Founded University, for example, is applying the policy to the students who get 21-24 marks from the university entrance exams. The Lac Hong University wil exempt the tuition for the first year of studying at the school, if students get 22 marks and more from the exams.

However, the number of schools offering preferences and scholarships to students remains modest.

Most of the current people founded schools remain weak in financial capability. Therefore, their main source of income is the tuition. As the money from tuition needs to be spent on training and re-investment, the schools have to set up the tuitions much higher than that of state owned schools.

This explains why most of the schools which break the enrolment regulations stipulated by the Ministry of Education and Training are non-state owned schools. An educator has noted that a school would be imposed the fine of tens of millions of dong for the violations. This means that schools just need to collect tuitions from some students to have enough money to pay fine.

In previous years, some schools reportedly enrolled the numbers of students 60-70 percent higher than the “quota” granted by the Ministry of Education and Training.

High tuition, low quality

The tuitions set up by people founded schools tend to increase slightly this academic year. While state owned school students have to pay the 4.2-8 million dong a year, the same levels as last year’s, non-state school students would pay higher.

In terms of tuitions, there are two different groups of people founded schools. The first group of schools set low tuition levels from 6 million dong to 10 million dong, including Chu Van An, Dong A Technology University, Trung Vuong, Van Xuan Technology University, Ha Hoa Tien, Thanh Dong.

The second group sets up high tuitions which can be affordable only by the students from well off families. The Saigon International University collects 42.5 million dong for the training curriculum in Vietnamese, 105 million dong for the training curriculum in English.

Especially, Tan Tao University collects 3000 dollars a year from students of all majors, even though schools are not allowed to collect tuitions in dollars.

Source: Dai Doan Ket

Business & Investment Opportunities 
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. We also propose Higher Education, as a bridge between educational structures and industries, by supporting international programmes. Many thanks for visiting www.yourvietnamexpert.com and/or contacting us at contact@yourvietnamexpert.com

Dear Reader,

May I invite you to visit our new blog: IIMS-Asean http://iims-asean.blogspot.com/

News and activities of the International Institute of Medicine and Science Asean Chapter of IIMS, Inc. California, USA - Health care, Life Science, Education, Research, Philanthropy. Asean is the economic organisation of ten countries located in South East Asia: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. IIMS is a non-profit organization.