VietNamNet Bridge – Despite offering advanced curriculums imported from foreign schools and good learning environment where learners can listen to lectures in English, study with foreign professors and practice on modern equipments, many universities still cannot attract students.

According to Deputy Minister of Education and Training Bui Van Ga, the numbers of students enrolled in advanced training programmes are different, depending on majors. The majors relating to economics (finance, international economics, business administration) have high numbers of students (60-80 students per course).

Meanwhile, some other majors, including the material science provided by the Hanoi University of Technology, or energy system by the HCM City University of Technology, have very few students, just 20-30 students per course.

According to Ton That Dung, a senior official from the Hue Pedagogical University, the school plans to enroll 30 student for every course, but it never got enough students.

The school accepted 30 students for the first training course, but only 25 students have continued their studies. Meanwhile, 21 students were enrolled for the second course, and 20 students for the third. Especially, 21 students were eligible for studying at the school, but only seven keep studying.

According to Dung, students of pedagogical schools do not have to pay tuitions if they follow normal training programmes. Therefore, they hesitate to follow advanced training programme for which they will have to pay tuitions as per the plan by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET).

Besides, Dung has expressed his concern about the financial stability of the programmes, once the state stops allocating budget, while the school cannot collect tuitions from students, who are few anyway. “As the budget has been cut, we cannot invite foreign lecturers. Therefore, we have to use local lecturers, who are not really qualified when it comes to teaching in English,” Dung said

Truong Chi Hien, Deputy President of the HCM City University of Technology, also said that with high tuitions, it is very difficult to attract students , explaining that the students good at English would rather follow other training programmes where they have the opportunities to obtain scholarships.

In principle, students in advanced training programmes must study with foreign lecturers. However, not all schools can meet this requirement. The number of foreign lecturers hired for the 2006 training course only met 50 percent of the demand.

The problem lies in overly high fees. According to Doan Cong Vinh, Deputy President of Da Nang University of Technology, every visiting foreign lecturer is paid $55-70 per period, or $2000 per week.

Meanwhile, Associate Professor Dr Pham Quang Trung, Deputy President of Hanoi Economics University, said that in the first two years of implementing the new advanced programme, there have been a lot of arguments among lecturers.

“Many lecturers think that the curricula are not good, too unfamiliar to Vietnamese students. Meanwhile, the costs of the programme are too high. Parents and students still have doubts about the programme’s effectiveness,” Trung admitted.

Meanwhile, Tran Thi Ha, Director of the University Education Department under MOET, stressed that “advanced training programmes” should not be understood simply as the curricula “imported” from foreign countries and the lectures given in English. MOET encourages schools to learn the modern teaching methods of foreign schools, while they need to “localize” the curricula to make them suitable to Vietnamese students.

Since 2006, 23 Vietnamese universities, cooperating with 22 foreign universities, have provided 35 advanced training programmes in Vietnam.

Source: Tien phong