VietNamNet Bridge – While non-state owned universities feel happy about the new enrolment mechanism set up by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), intermediate and vocational schools get gloomily sad about it.

The intermediate (2-year training for high school graduates) and vocational schools in the south have unanimously voiced their protest against the new enrolment mechanism to be applied from the 2014 academic year.

Under the mechanism, universities and junior colleges can set up the requirements on input students themselves. They may consider the exam results of the candidates or their high school learning records to decide whether to receive them.

 Meanwhile, the current regulation that students must obtain the minimum required marks from the university entrance exams to be able to enter any schools in Vietnam will be removed.

This means that the opportunities to follow higher education would be offered to more students, including the below-average students.

The mechanism has surely satisfied people-founded schools, which have been complaining over the last few years about the lack of students. The schools complained that the floor-mark mechanism applied by MOET was the main reason that prevented students from entering their schools.

While the heads of people founded universities leap for joy, the headmasters of vocational schools feel sad because they can foresee the death of the schools.

The representatives of 20 intermediate and vocational schools in the south gathered on March 19 to discuss the solutions to exist in the new circumstances.

Dang Van Sang, Headmaster of Anh Sang Intermediate School, noted that the new mechanism would drive intermediate and vocational schools to the corner.

“As MOET has removed the floor-mark mechanism, i.e. the requirements are eased, all students would flock into universities rather than vocational schools because Vietnamese always prefer the degrees for higher education,” said Sang.

Nguyen Viet Dung, Headmaster of the Saigon Economics & Technique School, expressed his worry about the leave of students.

“A lot of our students have left the school, registering to attend this year’s university entrance exams, because they can see more opportunities to pass the exams with the new mechanism,” Dung said.

He has warned that the new mechanism would not only kill intermediate schools in the immediate time, but also would cause the imbalance in the labor force in the society in the future.

“The renovations committed by MOET just aim to “popularize higher education,” not to create a reasonable, harmonized and stable labor force for the nation,” an educator noted.

Meanwhile, Do Huu Khoa, Headmaster of the Saigon Information Technology School, frankly said MOET seemingly tries to increase the number of university students as much as possible.

“It may happen one day that Vietnam seriously lacks skilful workers and has to import the workers, while it the workers with university degrees would be in redundancy,” he said.

Headmaster of the Ben Thanh School Luong Quang Ngoc complained that Vietnamese schools suffer from the changeable policies set up by MOET.

“New policies are set up every year. The instability makes it impossible for us to plan long term strategies,” Ngoc complained.

Dan Viet