Under a draft regulation by the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the lecturers studying for doctorates full time in Vietnam within the framework of Project 89 would receive full tuition coverage and payment for other expenses to serve their study.

The financial support is VND20 million a year for medicine and pharmacy PhD students and VND18 million for natural sciences, technology, agriculture-forestry-seafood, sports and arts students. Students in social sciences, economics, law, hospitality, tourism and other majors receive VND13 million a year.

These support levels will be applied during the time of study, which will be no longer than four years.

A university lecturer in HCM City said the projected financial support is insignificant compared with the real amount of money PhD students have to pay.

“The expenses to attend seminars will be very high, including ones organized in Vietnam,” he said. “If a researcher flies from HCM City to Hanoi to attend a seminar, the ticket is VND4 million. Also, they have to pay for hotel room rates and meals.”

However, he said that domestic research and seminars are not seen as being of high quality, which could be why MOF suggests such low support levels.

A professor in medicine and pharmacy commented that VND20 million is “pay that kind of sucks”.

“You know what you can buy with VND20 million. Imagine you have a modest amount of money, but there are so many conferences and seminars a year to attend,” he said.

Meanwhile, Phung Minh Tuan, Member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council, said PhD students can receive financial support from schools where they work, so it’s difficult to say how much is really enough.

Many universities in Vietnam said that they are capable of producing high-quality PhDs. However, it’s difficult to find good candidates because these candidates have many opportunities to obtain scholarships to study abroad.

HCM City National University, for example, can accept thousands of PhD students, but it could not enroll enough students for master’s and doctoral degrees in 2012-2017. The number of registered PhD students dropped from 10,000 each year in the 2012-2013 period to 6,706 in 2014. The figure fell further to 2,912 in 2017, or 400 lower than planned.

Except for 2012, the school has not been able to enroll enough PhD students. In 2013, it enrolled 83 percent of its goal. The figures were 84 percent in 2014, 79 percent in 2015 and 77 percent in 2016. 

Le Huyen

Ministry to pay up to VND3.5 billion for each PhD student studying overseas

Most managers believe that VND3.5 billion is a reasonable spending level and PhD students will perform well if they choose suitable schools.

Over 2,500 lecturers register for doctoral programs under State-funded project

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, more than 1,200 lecturers registered to study for a PhD under the State-funded Project 89 in 2021 and over 1,300 registered in 2022.