VietNamNet Bridge – It is so difficult for universities to find the lecturers with higher education that this is compared with the job of “picking up the stars on the sky.”

Schools cannot find lecturers

The Ministry of Education and Training’s (MOET) decision to force a lot of local schools to stop providing training because of the lack of lecturers has not surprised anyone.

It has been known to everyone that a series of local schools in Ha Nam, Hung Yen, Ninh Binh, Hai Phong... have been running in a state of lacking lecturers since the day they were upgraded from junior colleges (3-year training) into universities (4-year training).

Tran Phuong, President of the Hanoi University of Business and Technology, affirmed that localities cannot have enough lecturers to develop schools.

According to Phuong, most of the people who have bachelor or master degrees, about 50 percent in Hanoi and 25 percent in HCM City, stay settling and working in big cities. Only a small percentage of the people with higher education accept to go to small cities and provinces.

“How can the local schools hire qualified lecturers with higher education then?” Phuong questioned.

Also according to Phuong, the president of a school in Nam Dinh province once entreated help from Phuong, asking Phuong to “lend” some lecturers.

The president could then “borrow” the names of some lecturers and deans from Phuong, which were then shown to the Ministry of Education and Training as the permanent lecturers of the school. Thanks to the borrowed names, the president successfully obtained the watchdog’s agency license for opening a local university.

“I just lent the lecturers’ names, not the real lecturers. They are too busy with the lessons in Hanoi. How can they travel 100 kilometers to Nam Dinh to give lecturers there?” Phuong said.

Lecturers cannot find jobs

T, a new lecturer of a finance & banking school, said that it took him, a potential candidate with doctorate and the experiences as an assistant lecturer at a prestigious school in France, one year to get the current job.

“I read on newspapers that a school was seeking lecturers, but I could not find the information about job vacancy on the school’s website,” he said.

“In another case, I sent my CV to the finance faculty of a school. I was told that by CV was forwarded to the school’s leadership. But I heard nothing from the school,” he said. “I believed that it would be easier to find a job at a local school. But I did not want the jobs, because my family members settle in Hanoi.”

Having found a job, T does not feel satisfactory about it because of the modest income.

The president of a state owned school confirmed that the highest pay for a young lecturer like T is about VND4 million a month, the level set up by the State.

The question remains unanswered. Analysts have noted that though the heads of schools have been making every effort to invite qualified lecturers to work for them, the “brain drain” remains very serious.

Le Huu Lap, Deputy Director of the Post and Telecommunication Academy, where 50 percent of lecturers have bachelor degree, complained that most of the lecturers have left the school after they obtained the doctorates from foreign prestigious schools. Therefore, the school is seriously lacking lecturers with higher education.

Chi Mai