Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha said that the VND12 trillion (USD545.4 million) project is not aimed for the massive training of PhDs, but will be based on the real demand and will focus on the quality of training.

The minister had an interview with reporters on the sidelines of the National Assembly meeting on November 16 about the USD545.4-million project to train 9,000 PhDs by 2025.  

Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha answers reporters on the sidelines of the National Assembly meeting on November 16

The public has raised concerns over the project’s effectiveness following stories about Vietnam’s massive but ineffective doctoral training programmes. Some experts said it was impractical and a waste of resources.

According to Nha, the project is the revision of Project 911 which focuses on training PhD instructors for universities and junior colleges in Vietnam during the 2010-20 period.

Vietnam’s college and university lecturers with doctoral degrees account for just 21% compared to 35% set by Project 911 by 2020. Once the USD545.4-million project is finished, the rate of lecturers being PhDs will be just 30%.

The budget of the USD545.4-million project will not be distributed to localities as usual but will be used as scholarships. It means that the scholarships will be provided to people who can meet all requirements to be selected by localities for the doctoral training courses based on the real demand, Nha added.

The project will be used based on the number of qualified candidates, so, when the project finished, the government will manage the remaining budget.

The Ministry of Education and Training will work with the Ministry of Finance to calculate the appropriate investment level for each scholarship, depending on different localities.

Training centres are encouraged to co-operate with foreign partners for doctoral courses, but not necessary to send all selected people abroad for the training.

Regarding the mechanism to supervise the project’s quality training, Nha noted that schools and localities, as well as the doctoral training course attendants, have to be responsible for the training quality. The ministry only gives the financial support and helps them in the orientation.

Dtinews