VietNamNet Bridge - According to the Department of Teachers and Educational Managers, the number of university lecturers has increased but the quality has not improved. 

Many lecturers don’t carry out scientific research, don’t have articles published in scientific journals, and have limited foreign language skills.

The Education Quality Accreditation Center, which assessed 20 top-tier universities in 2016, found that schools lacked lecturers and many of them lecturers were not sufficiently qualified.

Under current laws, university lecturers must have a master’s degree. However, 16 percent of lecturers at the schools had only a bachelor’s degree. 

Nguyen Hai Thap, deputy head of the Department of Teachers and Educational Managers, said that lecturers are good at professional knowledge, but have problems in scientific research and IT utilization.

According to Thap, the problem is there are no standards for university lecturers, though there are standards for general school teachers.

Many lecturers don’t carry out scientific research, don’t have articles published in scientific journals, and have limited foreign language skills.

“MOET (Ministry of Education & Training) doesn’t have standards on university lecturers. Some schools set standards for their lecturers, but most others don’t have. So we don’t know what we have to strive for to improve lecturing staff,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Da Nang University has set very clear goals for its plan to develop staff. The lecturers aged below 45 must plan training courses for themselves to obtain doctorate after five years. 

The newly recruited lecturers must have master’s degree before they turn 30 and have doctorate before aged 38. Young lecturers are required to attend training courses overseas, except in some specific fields.

The university has stated that from now on, it will only choose candidates finishing school with excellent marks, high achievements in scientific research and good English skills.

Of 1,459 lecturers at Da Nang University, 26.94 percent have a doctorate and 63 percent a master’s degree, while 50 percent can give lectures in foreign languages.

Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha at a conference discussing solutions to upgrade tertiary education quality in January said that 19 percent of lecturers with a doctorate was a very low proportion.

“If we can raise the number, this will impact the quality of university education. And this is the thing rectors have to do,” Nha said.

Thap also emphasized the need to increase the number of lecturers with a doctorate, step by step. “Our goal is that one must have doctorate to be a university lecturer,” said.

By the end of the 2016-2017 academic year, Vietnam had 235 universities and academies (170 state-owned schools, 60 private and “people-founded” schools, and 5 foreign owned schools), 37 research institutes assigned to train PhDs, 33 pedagogical junior colleges and two pedagogical intermediate schools (2-year training).

There are 58 universities, 57 junior colleges, and 40 intermediate schools which produce teachers.