VietNamNet Bridge - Many schools still cannot find enough students to start the new academic year, a trend that has occurred for several years. 

The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) this year allowed training establishments to enroll 647,222 students for universities (4-5 year training) and junior colleges (3-year training).

After two enrollment campaigns, 443 schools have found 463,537 students, or 89.75 percent of total students they need. As many as 146 schools have stopped enrollment as they have fulfilled enrollment plans.

Meanwhile, 28 schools reported that they lack thousands of students. The Hanoi Economics & Industry College, for example, still needs over 9,000 more students. Non-state owned and local schools also said they need many more students.

An analyst pointed out that schools cannot fulfill their enrolment plan because they have been enrolling more and more students year after year. This means that schools lack students not because of limited supply, but because of the larger training scale.

He cited a report from MOET’s Information Technology Agency as saying that the number of students schools plan to admit had increased by 3-4 times.

The supply of students was 6.5 times higher than demand in 2005, but the figure this year was just 1.52 times the demand. 

In 2013, universities planned to enroll 329,896 students. In 2015, the figure soared to 439,000. 

The enrolment results, according to MOET, ‘truly reflect the society’s assessment about schools’ training quality’. This means that schools still lack students because they are less prestigious than others.

A question has been raised that whether the ‘less prestigious’ schools should continue their existence, or should they be shut down by MOET.

Education experts believe that shutting down low-quality schools is a must to ensure the training quality of the national educational system and ensure students’ benefits.

However, it is not easy to close schools. Acting director of the MOET’s University Education Department Nguyen Thi Kim Phung said: “One of the reasons for the watchdog agency to close down a school is lack of students. However, in fact, the worst schools still can find more than 100 students.”

“Investors spend big money to set up private schools and they know what they have to do to maintain the schools’ operation. Meanwhile, the job of the state management agency is to ensure that schools can operate in a fair environment,” she said.

Under the current laws, a school will have to suspend enrolment if it cannot enroll students for three consecutive years. If it cannot settle its problems, it will then have to stop operation. 

Tien Phong