VietNamNet
Bridge – Viet Nam has set a goal to have
one Vietnamese university in the world top 200 by 2020.
Vietnamese universities are under
pressure to change, especially in terms of raising the quality of scientific
research as an important part in reforming higher education. This task is also
critical to the country's transition into an efficiency driven industrialised
economy by 2020. Viet Nam's total research output is still smaller than that of
a single university in Thailand, such as Chulalongkorn or Mahidol University.
Viet Nam News reporters Thu Trang
and Thu Huong spoke to experts on the issue.
How important is scientific research to the quality and ranking of our
universities and to the country's development as a whole?
* Ta Duc Thinh,
director of the Ministry of Education and Training's Department of Science,
Technology and Environment:
Viet Nam targets becoming an
industrial nation by 2020, so obviously improving the quality of our human
resources is critical. The training quality of a university depends a lot on
its level of scientific and technology research.
If we cannot improve the quality
of our university research, obviously that means a lack of skilled human
resources would not be available to propel us to reach the goal by 2020.
* Professor Philip Hallinger,
Hong Kong Institute of Education, consultant to various universities in Asia:
World university rankings are
creating pressure for change in higher education throughout the world. Nowhere
is this more apparent than in East Asia.
All of the region's universities
must respond to the world university rankings since they are taken as a ‘matter
of face' by East Asia's government leaders. As ASEAN continues the process of
economic integration, social integration will follow naturally.
Among the most important factors
in world university ranking is research publication in international journals.
Recently, in Viet Nam, the
Ministry of Education and Training set a goal to have one university in the top
200 by 2020. However, currently none of the nation's universities are ranked in
the top 2,000. Achieving this ambitious goal will require a clear strategy and
persistent effort at all levels of the country's higher education system.
It is inevitable that regional
and global standards will gradually replace Viet Nam's traditional standards
for assessing quality in higher education.
What do you think are the major obstacles to raising the quality of
research in Vietnamese universities?
Thinh: The biggest
obstacle is our financial mechanism. The legal documents and regulations with
regards to financing scientific research are out of date. The financial
resources in this area are not distributed properly and there's also the
burdensome paperwork involved. This does not motivate scientists to do
research.
The Party and the Government
fully understand the importance of scientific and technological research,
considering that 2 per cent of the annual State budget is spent on this area.
However, while the financial resources are limited, there are problems in
funding allocation.
Universities are where knowledge
and new technology can be created and where most scientists concentrate.
However, they do not receive enough funding. Annual funding for a university
lecturer to conduct his/her scientific research is only about VND10 million
(US$470).
With such a low investment, we
cannot expect great contributions in scientific research.
* Professor Nguyen Van Tuan,
Garvan Institute of Medical Research, University of New South Wales:
It is now clear that scientific
research in Viet Nam needs major reform. At present, we have many institutes
and research groups scattered around the country, and their scientific
productivity is generally low; there is little collaboration among them.
From my perspective,
reorganisation of research units is the most important priority for Viet Nam.
Modern research is a collaborative effort which requires specialists from
various disciplines to work on a specific problem. This is true because
scientists from different disciplines work best when they interact in a good
environment. Therefore, we need few world-class multidisciplinary institutes,
and a number of specialised key laboratories. These institutes and laboratories
should be granted academic autonomy to pursue research areas deemed to have the
greatest relevance to society.
I think it is fair to say that
policymakers in Viet Nam have been busy in the building of infrastructure for
research and, as a result, they have paid little attention to scientific output
and research quality.
For a long time, scientists and
professors in Viet Nam have been neither under pressure nor encouraged to
publish their research in international peer-reviewed journals. That partly
explains why the Vietnamese presence in the international scientific arena is
very modest.
Hallinger: In regional
countries, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia, a standard
requirement is emerging in which each university faculty member is expected to
publish at least one paper in an international journal per year.
Vietnamese universities are
lagging behind other regional countries in research productivity to an extent
that this standard could not be applied here. This is a major problem in the
natural sciences where international publications from Viet Nam are infrequent
and an even bigger problem in the social sciences where international publications
from Viet Nam are "rare events".
Clearly, unless that changes
dramatically, the national goal to have one university in the top 200 in the
world university ranking will not be achieved.
Some of the obstacles that other
regional higher education systems have had to overcome, and which seem relevant
in Viet Nam, include: low salaries, heavy teaching load, lack of funding
structures to support research, lack of transparency in reward and promotion
with respect to research output.
* Associate professor Pham Dinh
Nghiem, former head of the scientific projects management department at the
University of Social Sciences and Humanities-HCM City:
Limited financial resources and
low salaries are the biggest obstacles to improving the quality of scientific
research. Many research projects at the University of Social Sciences and
Humanities have been rejected because of limited funding. Some people could say
that faculty members could still write papers to get published in international
journals. However, these papers cannot appear out of nowhere, only after a long
and rigorous process of research and analysis.
Without enough salary and
funding, university researchers can't even live. We're obviously falling behind
other universities in the region, evident by the number of articles published
in international journals in recent years.
What kind of specific policies are needed to boost scientific research
at universities?
Thinh: We need to set up
policies to encourage lecturers to do research.
These policies include renewing
the financial mechanism, which means having clear priorities on funding
distribution and simplifying administrative procedures. Other tasks include
creating good environments and working conditions for lecturers and providing
them with opportunities to attend international conferences.
We need to set up proper salary
and allowance policies for outstanding scientists in their disciplines and
potential young scientists, and better award policies for good scientific
research and research being announced in international prestigious magazines.
It is expected that the ministry
will soon put out a new circular on managing international bilateral
co-operation in universities and colleges nationwide. This is also an important
change in how the ministry manages bilateral co-operation in scientific and
technological research.
Universities will be more active
and can exploit their international partners' potential and strong points,
closely link research with training programmes for masters and doctors, increase
the number of articles in international journals, thus improving universities'
potential in scientific research.
Hallinger: There must
be a clear funding structure to support research across all basic and applied
disciplines in Vietnamese universities. Viet Nam's universities have Memoranda
of Understanding with many international universities but what is the result?
How many of these have resulted in collaborative research? These should be
built around key research projects that enable local faculties to gain
experience and develop their capacities to conduct research capable of
international publication through collaboration.
There's also the need to change
the incentive structure in Vietnamese universities. This may mean reducing the
teaching load in faculties, paying for research output, making research output
an important factor in promotion, and making the standards very clear. In most
universities internationally, where faculties have an expectation for
conducting research, the typical teaching load does not exceed three courses
per semester.
Tuan: Viet Nam now has
about 9,500 professors and more than 25,000 PhDs. However, the number of
international peer-reviewed publications is only around 1,300, suggesting a
very low productivity.
During the past five years, the
State budget for scientific research has continuously increased but the
scientific productivity has not changed. Therefore, spending more money on
science has not necessarily translated into improved scientific output.
Indeed, while money is critically
important, people are even more important in scientific research. We can pour a
lot of money into research but if we don't have high quality researchers, the
money could potentially be misspent and there would be no improvement.
I strongly believe that at
present (and in the near future) we need to build a critical mass of high
quality scientists to ensure successful investment in science and technology.
Nghiem: Reducing the
teaching load for faculty members would allow them to have more time for
research. Currently, our faculty members are teaching too many hours. We need
to understand that most of them have to teach many hours because of salaries.
Steps must also be taken to find
output markets for results of scientific research. That means providing
opportunities for successful scientific research to be applied. The scientist
cannot make this happen by himself. The relevant agencies, foremost the
Ministry of Science and Technology, need to get involved.
We need to implement strictly the
law on intellectual property rights because only that way will new innovations
be protected and the works of scientists be paid for accordingly.
Source:
VNS
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