VietNamNet Bridge - Many education experts have opposed the tuition increase, warning that higher expenses will lower the opportunities of the poor to have higher education. 

 

Meanwhile, the Vietnam Education Dialogue (VED) group believes that keeping university tuition low is a wrong approach to higher education. 

Vietnam’s university education is facing three big financial problems – lack of funding, inequality and lack of autonomy.

A World Bank report in 2010 showed that the budget for higher education in Vietnam accounted for 14 percent of the budget for education. 

Meanwhile, the public investment in higher education accounts for 0.9 percent of GDP. 

Vietnam has been pursuing a policy on keeping the university fees at low levels to make university education approachable for the poor. 

VED believes the policy is unreasonable, because this would lead to inequality. 

Low tuition makes it impossible for universities to have sufficient revenue to maintain operation and grant scholarships to poor students. 

Since schools cannot collect enough money from students, they have to financially rely on the state budget. 

As a result, only students from well-off families can access higher education, while education costs for well-off students are paid by the State. 

The other solutions, including the scholarship program and credit funds for poor students, according to VED, cannot help in this case.

Professor Pham Phu, a well-known educator, also agrees that this is a wrong policy to try to set up low tuition to keep university doors open to poor students. 

He noted that by following the unreasonable policy, Vietnam is using the poor’s money to feed the rich.

A survey on Vietnamese household living standards conducted by the General Statistics Office (GSO) in 2012 showed there are big differences in the capability of accessing higher education among Vietnamese groups of income earners.

The number of people with bachelor’s degrees at the ages of 25-34 just accounts for 0.4 percent of the group of lowest-income earners. 

Meanwhile, the proportion is high, with 20.1 percent of the group of highest income earners. 

Regarding the EEI (education equity index) which reflects the capability of different groups of population to obtain university education, Vietnam’s index is 37.76 percent, far below developed countries such as the Netherlands, the UK, Canada and the US (67 percent, 64, 63 and 57 percent, respectively). 

Only 3 percent of current Vietnamese tertiary students come from the poorest 20 percent. In other words, a serious inequality exists in accessing higher education opportunities. 

Thoi Bao Kinh Te Sai Gon has cited a UNESCO report as saying that 51 percent of Vietnamese students are from the richest 20 percent of the population.

Thanh Mai