Most National Assembly deputies yesterday expressed their pleasure at a draft law on higher education after hearing a presentation by Chairman of the NA Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children Dao Trong Thi.

The draft submitted to lawmakers during the session included 7 chapters and 74 articles. Chairman Dao Trong Thi presented key points in the draft law including a model of educational systems, organisational structure, self-control rights, socialised education and finance, university assets, education quality control and assessment, and international education co-operation.

Establishment of university board committees at state universities was necessary as deputy Dang Thi My Huong from Ninh Thuan province argued such committees would not only help enhance self-control rights of higher institutions, but create a healthy, transparent and responsible system as well. Huong also suggested that the ministry of education and training should provide detailed regulations and define the responsibility and duty of each committee member.

Regarding classification of universities, participants agreed that the law should regulate specific criterion, standards and classifications of universities based on position, role and function. Deputy Nguyen Thanh Phuong, from Can Tho City, suggested grading universities would be carried out soon after the law is put into practice.

Lawmakers yesterday agreed that universities should be given self control rights but a roadmap should be made when giving rights to universities.

Regarding a regulation on the teacher qualifications, some deputies wondered if universities or art colleges in some provinces would find enough teachers with the demand that all possess a postgraduate degree.

Related to the content of socialising education, many deputies proposed to clarify the concept of profit and non-profit education in order to issue proper policies for each.

Deputy Nguyen Thi Kim Thuy, from Central Port Da Nang City, said research showed that 100 per cent of private education units were operating for the purpose of profit, partly manifesting on the selection of branches for training. Due to pressure from shareholders, education has run following profit, affecting training quality.

Regarding the foreign invested universities that want self-control, some deputies suggested to regulate the percentage of the capital contributed by foreign investors. Self-control will be assessed case by case depending on the rate of foreign funds.

The deputies also said that the self-control mechanism should be applied to 100 per cent foreign invested institutions in order to lure in foreign capital.

As for the assessment of university education quality, the majority of NA deputies agreed that the disclosure of assessment results was compulsory.

Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan cleared up some questions NA deputies raised at the meeting and made clearer the need to issue the Law on Higher Education.

Trade Union Law

Yesterday afternoon, NA deputies deliberated on the revised Trade Union Law draft.

Ideas remained split on whether or not to grant the right for foreign labourers to join trade unions in Viet Nam.

According to Chairman of NA's Legal Affairs Committee Phan Trung Ly, tens of thousands of foreigners were working at foreign-invested enterprises or domestic firms nation-wide.

"Reality has seen some disputes between them and their employers, which requires interference from trade unions," he said.

Ly's ideas received agreement from some other deputies, reasoning that joining trade unions would protect the legitimate rights of foreign labourers.

Under one of the draft law's two options, any foreign labourers having work permits granted by State authorised bodies and labour contract's validity for the next six months could join trade unions, but would not be allowed to take up leadership roles.

However, according to deputy Ngo Van Minh from central Quang Nam Province, not many foreign workers would be interested in being only unions members.

Another option from the draft did not support foreign labourers joining trade unions, consented by various deputies.

Deputy Lam Le Ha, from Kien Giang Province, said that Vietnamese workers in many overseas countries were not part of local trade unions.

Some other issues of the draft law were also discussed, including the scale of enterprises to have trade unions, financial sources for the union activities and responsibilities of unions in organising and leading strikes.

VNS