VietNamNet Bridge - The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has released legal documents to control the universities’ training scale and quality, but  schools still can escape through legal loopholes and enroll more and more students.

National University, HCM City.

Since the University Education Law took effect, MOET has no longer set quotas on the numbers of students universities can enroll every year, but they have set numbers based on their capability.

However, in order to prevent schools from arbitrarily expanding the training scale, MOET released Circular 57, showing how to determine the enrollees of university students and postgraduates.

Under the circular, the number of university students and postgraduates are defined based on two criteria – the ratio of students to lecturers and thefacilities' conditions.

However, the circular cannot help: schools’ training scale has been growing excessively.

To tighten control over the training scale expansion, MOET in 2015 released Circular 32 to replace Circular 57 which is believed to comprise stricter requirements on schools. However, schools still can find a way to dodge the new regulation.

Under Circular 32, there must be no less than 2.5 square meters for every student. This means that the Hanoi Business and Technology University, with 35,000 students, must have 87,500 square meters in usable area, including 75,000 square meters for full-time students.

The representative of the school explained that the total area of classrooms is 41,731 square meters, and students only have one learning shift a day.

 If the classrooms are used for two learning shifts, the total usable area would be double 83,462 square meters, large enough for 30,000 full-time students.

An expert commented that though the Circular 32 set detailed requirement on the school area, the requirements are still not strict enough.

Hanoi Open University can meet the requirements on the total area, but it is problematic that its classrooms are located at shopping malls, or near noisy railways and markets.

The expert also pointed out the problems in the requirement on the number and qualification of university lecturers.

Under Circular 32, permanent lecturers of privately run universities are the ones who work under labor contracts with fixed terms of 36 months or indefinite term contracts.

The provision creates a legal loophole for private schools to ‘fabricate’ the lists of lecturers as they want.

“Schools sign long-term labor contracts with lecturers, but pay based on the number of teaching hours,” the expert explained.

“I know many permanent lecturers, whose names are found in lecturer’s list, but they don’t have any teaching hours all year round,” he said.

Withmore than 400 universities and junior colleges, it is impossible for MOET to inspect all schools every enrollment season.

Kim Chi