VietNamNet Bridge – People-founded schools, which are in the danger of getting dissolved because of the lack of students, have been vocal about the indifference of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) to their difficulties.

The association of people founded schools on December 19 gathered a meeting to review the 2012 enrolment season and decided to send a petition to MOET, asking to amend the current enrolment mechanism.

Tran Xuan Nhi, Deputy Chair of the association, said people founded schools have made a great contribution to the national education system and the training of the labor force for the society. However, they have not received the appropriate attention from the MOET – the father of the schools.

A lot of people founded universities reported that they could not find enough students in the 2012 enrolment season. This means that the supply of students for people-founded schools to enroll is not profuse as promised by MOET.

This has been attributed to the currently applied mechanism set up by MOET, which makes it unable for many students to follow university education, while schools seriously lack students.

“A lot of parents complain that their children cannot go to university, and they feel anxious about the future of the children, who may become addicted or corrupted because they have nothing to learn or work,” Nhi said, adding that it’s necessary to urgently adjust the current mechanism.

President of the Hai Phong people founded school, Tran Huu Nghi, said his school had found 50 percent of the students it needed by November 30, the enrolment season deadline. However, Hai Phong seems to be luckier than many other schools which reportedly have found 10-20 percent of students needed.

“This is the worst enrolment season so far. We never lacked students in the last many years. Meanwhile, we may have to close some training majors because of the lack of students,” Nghi said.

The president affirmed that his school has good material facilities conditions, dormitories and qualified teaching staff. Therefore, one should not blame the lack of students on the poor learning conditions of the school.

Nghi has pointed out that MOET set the floor marks unreasonable and wrongly. The floor marks are the minimum marks set up for every group of exams students which must be obtained from the university entrance exams to be able to apply to any university in Vietnam.

MOET was warned against the unreasonable floor marks, but it then affirmed that people founded schools would have enough students. However, in fact, a lot of schools, including state owned ones, could not enroll enough students.

In principle, students would prefer state owned schools because they believe that they can receive better training quality from the schools. And only those, who cannot enroll in state owned schools, would apply for the seats at people founded schools.

“Many state owned schools set low requirements on the marks students must obtain from the university entrance exams. Therefore, they have lured all the students,” Nghi complained.

Le Viet Khuyen, who was Deputy Director of the University Education Division of the Ministry of Education and Training, has warned that if nothing is improved, people founded schools would die in some years.

Khuyen has denied the accusation that people founded schools cannot enroll enough students because of their bad management. He said that many presidents of people founded schools were once senior officials of education ministry or local education departments. They are also well known educators and scientists.

Especially, the Tan Tao University, which has the lecturers who are the professors in the US, could enroll 30 students only.

Kieu Oanh