Nguyen Thu Thuy, Director of the Ministry of Education and Training’s (MOET) Higher Education Department, said the notice on the inspectorate’s conclusions No 638 dated April 29, 2022 on financial and public asset management, implementation of investment projects, cooperation in scientific research and training, and granting of doctorate and master’s degrees in 2015-2019 comprises many contents.

Regarding production of doctoral and master candidates, the notice said “enrollment, training and  management from 2017 to now have been implemented in accordance with regulations”. Prior to 2017, the academy had many shortcomings and mistakes, but the problems have been fixed.

However, the government’s inspectorate still asked VASS to supplement the steps of the training process.

In 2021, MOET released a regulation on enrollment and training at the master’s level, associated with Circular 23/2021 dated August 30, 2021, and a regulation on enrollment and training at the doctoral level, associated with Circular 18/2021 dated June 28, 2021.

The training establishments which produce master’s degrees and doctorates and VASS have the responsibility of building a training process based on the two above documents.

According to Thuy, since 2017, VASS has been inspected by three agencies, including MOET, State Audit and Government Inspectorate. The enrollment and training of the academy have been regularly corrected to be sure that the training is in accordance with regulations and improves in quality.

“MOET will continue to work with the Graduate Academy of Social Sciences and VASS to clarify relevant content. Alongside the inspection by appropriate agencies, MOET will perform the state management function and join forces with relevant parties to supervise implementation and explanations for tertiary education establishments,” Thuy said.

The Government inspectorate found many problems at VASS and dependent institutes: for example, students registered to study one major, but were granted a degree in another major; and some doctoral dissertations did not make significant scientific contributions.

The Government inspectorate found that in 2015-2017 the master's training process did not contain detailed regulations on subjects, and the conditions candidates must have to defend theses, and seniority; and did not contain regulations on foreign language skills before thesis defending. 

VASS issued regulations on management, but they are unreasonable and inadequate. The implementation of many topics is not in line with the provisions of the Law on Science and Technology and regulations on scientific management.

Three topics were found as making no scientific contribution to society. At least 37 topics and tasks at the ministerial level were not accepted at the grassroots level before being accepted at the ministerial level.

Phuong Chi