Nguyen Dang Vang, MOET’s International Cooperation Department’s director

Under the current regulation, investors must spend a rate of VND150 million per student, not including expenses on land use rights. The minimum capital must not be lower than VND300 billion. 

If the draft decree is approved, the minimum required capital will be raised to VND1 trillion.

Regarding the requirements on teaching staff, lecturers must have at least a master’s degree, while the number of lecturers with doctorates must not be lower than 50 percent of total lecturers, instead of 35 percent as stipulated in the current regulation.

Under the current regulation, investors must spend a rate of VND150 million per student, not including expenses on land use rights. The minimum capital must not be lower than VND300 billion.

When asked why Vietnam has to issue a new decree while decree No 73 on the issue was released four years ago, Nguyen Dang Vang, MOET’s International Cooperation Department’s director, said investors complained that current administrative procedures are too complicated, especially for schools which admit Vietnamese students.

Regarding the requirement on $45 million capital, Vang said this was a reasonable required investment rate to ensure the quality of university training. In fact, to have high training quality, the investment rate should be much higher. The Vietnam-Germany University has the investment capital of $200 million, or four times higher than the required capital.

Vang went on to say that the minimum required capital of VND1 trillion will also be applied to Vietnamese schools. The provision will be found in the draft decree on domestic investment the ministry is compiling.

Le Truong Tung, president of FPT University, a privately run school, applauding the MOET’s decision on minimum investment capital, said that VND1 trillion was not an high amount of capital for university education, though it is three to four times higher than that currently applied.

“Establishing and operating universities is not simple work, while training establishments always have large-scale impact on society,” he said.

“Big money is needed to set up an academic environment for teachers and students, and create environment for students to live, experience life and practice,” he added. 

Money must not be the only requirement for schools to operate well, but they also need good teaching staff, curricula, administrative technology and student quality. However, if schools don’t have big capital, they will meet high risks in operation.

The higher required investment capital has raised the worry that schools will set higher tuition, which will keep poor students away from higher education. 

However, experts said that high training quality cannot be expected without sufficient money spent on training.

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