The Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City has large-scale postgraduate courses with 105 Masters and 79 PhD courses. Statistically, some 1,108 students registered for PhD courses and 7,152 for Masters till January 1, 2017.

However, there has been a huge drop of graduates enrolled for postgraduate courses from 2012 to date. For instance, in 2012, some 10,000 graduates registered for the courses whereas just 2,912 in 2017.

Worse, comparison of registered students in each school has shown clearly the alarming fall. The number of registered graduates for PhD courses and Masters in University of Technology in Ho Chi Minh City slid from 57 and 3,464 in 2012 to 50 and 592 respectively now.

Even admission quota of each institutions has also seen a decline especially Mater courses in Vietnam National University’s school members. In 2012, the quota was 3,550 for Master courses but it was 3,320 in 2017.

Universities of Economics, Technology and Education, Transport, Law, Industry and Marketing Finance all fall in the same situation.

Why the numbers would fall by such a huge margin remains a matter of speculation but the execution of postgraduate programs have in recent years raised a number of pertinent questions.

According to the Vietnam National University in HCMC’s Council for Postgraduate, the culprit of the problem is fierce competition between local and international higher educational facilities in addition to complicated enrolment regulations. Therefore, local institutions should revamp enrolment methods and quality as per the world’s ways.

Vietnam National University in HCMC has issued the new master enrolment regulation which will be applied on July 1, 2019. According to the new regulation, juniors and seniors having performance score of 7 up ( in the scale of 10) will be entitled to register for Master courses.

Along with this, the university also accept graduates from other schools to enroll in the master courses and encourage graduates of internationally-qualified courses and excellent graduates to continue pursuing studying.

Hai Son