VietNamNet Bridge - The public says the plan on 9,000 PhDs with a budget of VND12 trillion is unnecessary and costly, while experts say the VND12 trillion is so low that it cannot ensure the success of the program.


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Vietnam needs more lecturers with doctorate



Comments criticizing the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) for its project are flooding social networks and education forums.

A VietNamNet reader said he could not understand why MOET proposed another PhD production project when Project 911 failed and the quality of PhDs remains an issue.

Educators advocate the MOET plan to produce more lecturers with doctorates to improve the quality of the staff. It is estimated that only 21 percent of lecturers have a doctorate.

Educators have warned that the huge amount of money needs to be spent in a reasonable way, or it will be wasted and Vietnam will not have high-quality PhDs.

Some of them said it is necessary to require PhDs trained with state funds to return to Vietnam and devote themselves to universities. The State will ‘lose lock, stock and barrel’ if the PhDs don’t come back, but stay overseas.

Educators have warned that the huge amount of money needs to be spent in a reasonable way, or it will be wasted and Vietnam will not have high-quality PhDs.

They suggested offering high pay and favorable working conditions to talented lecturers to persuade them to work for schools instead of paying money to produce more PhDs.

However, Nguyen Nha, former head of the training division of the Hanoi National University, doesn’t agree.

“One cannot say the project fails if 300 out of 500 postgraduates sent abroad don’t return to Vietnam after finishing study. We need to wait 15 years more, when the PhDs trained today become well-known and come back to Vietnam to set up businesses or build schools, to talk about the efficiency of the project,” Nha said.

“There are many different ways to attract overseas PhDs to Vietnam,” he added.

The National Assembly has approved budget allocation for 2018, giving a nod to Project 911 on producing PhDs in the 2010-2020 period, which would cost VND14 trillion.

MOET’s Minister Phung Xuan Nha said on Thoi Bao Kinh Te Viet Nam that the college and university lecturers with doctoral degrees account for just 21 per cent compared to 35 per cent set by the ministry’s Project 911 by 2020. Once the project training 9,000 PhD holders is finished, the rate of lecturers with PhDs will be 30 per cent.