Vietnam’s
education research is lagging far behind other regional countries, be it in
quantity or quality, two experts said in a Thursday article written exclusively
for Tuoi Tre newspaper.
Dr Pham Thi Ly, with VNU-HCM, among the
country’s best university blocs, and Professor Nguyen Van Tuan, a researcher at
Australia’s University of New South Wales, said that Vietnam published only 39
education research papers in international journals from 1996 to 2010.
They elaborated that a mere 13 of these were
education studies in their true sense, as most dealt with medical training
issues, and that only 7 papers were really ‘Vietnamese’, while the others were
co-authored by international researchers.
That total number is far too modest when
compared with other nations in East Asia in the same period, the duo
complained.
The country consequently ranked 14th out of
21 East Asian countries and territories, they said, adding that its peers,
Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, stood at number 8 (399 papers), 9
(177), and 11 (111), respectively.
The academics said there is a vast distance
between Vietnam and list toppers Taiwan and Hong Kong, as its number of
research papers in education was one-thirty-seventh and one-thirtieth of
theirs, respectively.
Few conduct education research professionally
in Vietnam, whereas colleges pay more attention to teaching than researching,
they observed.
Many local research papers may be of certain
value, but only a fraction have been submitted to the international academic
community for judgment, the two said.
Low
quality
The quality of Vietnam’s education studies is
still in question when citation frequency – among the popular benchmarks to
judge research papers – is taken into account, the pundits said.
The country was second from the bottom,
outdoing only Cambodia, against this criterion, they said, citing statistics
collected during the same period.
Vietnam also yielded a weak performance when
another standard was considered – the number of prolific and most cited
authors, they said, pointing out that no Vietnamese author has ever released
more than five education research studies in international publications during
the last 15 years.
Seventy-one Singaporeans met this
requirement, Dr Ly and Prof. Tuan said.
Total citations from Vietnamese works fell to
the bottom of the list and remained a long distance away from the other East
Asian countries throughout the same time frame, they noted.
Causes
Budget shortages and authors’ limited English
proficiency and unwillingness to publish research papers in international
publications have all contributed to the falling behind of the Vietnamese
education research area, the experts remarked.
They added that research method deficiencies
and the inability to access information should take the blame as well.
Policymakers could bear some responsibility
as they have yet to realize the importance of using research findings to
formulate new education policies, they concluded.
TUOI TRE
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