VietNamNet Bridge – On September 19, the ASEAN college released a notice on resuming the enrolment for the new academic year. This means that the conflict between the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and the junior college has stopped through conciliation?

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The public was waiting with impatience for the court’s decision on the ASEAN junior college, when the breaking news came that the school had been allowed to resume the enrolment.

Just one and a half months ago, ASEAN Junior College stated it has taken legal proceedings against MOET and the ministry’s inspectors for their unreasonable decisions to fine the school hundreds of millions of dong and forced to stop enrolling students in 2013.

MOET’s Chief Inspector Nguyen Huy Bang in May 2013 stated that ASEAN Junior College violated the Decision No. 42 issued in 2012 on the organization of joint training programs, because it organized the training courses without the licensing by the competent agencies.

The school has also been found as violating the Decision No. 06 stipulating the regulations on training students at the junior college and university levels, when organizing full-time training courses outside the school.

Tran Kim Phuong, Chair of the Management Board of ASEAN Junior School, when meeting local press, said that MOET’s inspectors clearly made a wrong decision when imposing the punishments.

People believed that the conflict between MOET and ASEAN school can only be settled by the court. And suddenly, MOET released the Dispatch No. 6467 dated September 19, 2013, which paved the way for ASEAN to resume the enrolment.

In the enrolment notice, the school affirms that it is allowed to enroll students and it will cooperate with the Dai Viet intermediate school to train the enrolled students and grant degrees in accordance with the current regulations.

The news has stirred up the public. Does it mean that MOET was wrong, and the punishments on ASEAN were unreasonable?

Prior to that, in August 2013, Bang re-affirmed that ASEAN violated the current regulations because it did not learn about the regulations well.

“The case has been basically settled. The school now continues working out with MOET on the fines imposed by MOET’s inspectors in June 2013,” Phuong said.

In June 2013, the inspectors decided that ASEAN had to pay the fine of VND245 million for its violations, the fine that Phuong believed was overly high if compared with the violations the school made.

The way MOET settles the problem has not been applauded by the public. An educator commented that the ministry does not show its determination to stop wrongdoings, reorganize and strengthen schools. If the school really violated the current regulations, it must be punished. And if MOET released a wrong decision, it must take responsibility for this.

He has also raised a question of why MOET did not make public the content of the Dispatch No. 6467, which allows ASEAN to resume the enrolment, on its official website.

Hien Dang