VietNamNet Bridge - Ngo Quy Nham, a lecturer at the Hanoi University of Foreign Trade, says that plagiarism has reached a ‘terrible’ level, and in most cases, plagiarists are not punished. 

Students’ lack knowledge about plagiarism, and lecturers are not requiring ethical academic standards. 

In some cases, even deans and candidates for professorship titles were accused of copying 50 percent of content from others’ work. However, their errors were glossed over. 

Other cases fell into oblivion as inspectors concluded that violations were only ‘unprofessional quoting’, not ‘plagiarizing’.

“It is odd that an experienced researcher who is going to be a PhD still doesn’t know how to cite others’ works properly,” said a university lecturer in Hanoi, noting the recent case at the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.

“University students continue to plagiarize because they know they won’t be punished,” he said, adding that there is no clear regulation on sanctions.

Hanoi National University, one of the most prestigious schools in Vietnam, for example, only released an official document on guiding how to make citations in scientific works in 2017.

Dr Do Thi Ngoc Quyen, an independent researcher in tertiary education, said there is big difference among universities in the level of international integration.

“Top-tier state-owned universities should be the pioneers in the movement against plagiarism. However, inertia in state-owned schools obstructs the work,” Quyen said.

“Non-state owned schools, with their typical structure, can implement new policies more easily. However, the number of such schools is very modest,” she said.

For that reason, Quyen believes that it would be better not to wait for schools to move ahead to fight plagiarism. The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) needs to take action now to stop plagiarism by setting regulations on citations and plagiarism.

“The concept of plagiarism needs to be explained to general school students as well,” Quyen said.

Meanwhile, Nham from Hanoi Foreign Trade University, emphasized the need for heavy sanctions.

“The punishment levels would vary, from asking plagiarists to rewrite their works to expelling violators from school. As for PhD student violators, they will be prohibited from coming back until some years later,” Nham said.

“If violators face strict punishment, it will deter others,” he said, adding that with software, discovering plagiarism has now become an easy task. 

Hanoi National University now uses DoIt software, while some others use Turnitin software to discover plagiarized work. 

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