VietNamNet Bridge – Educators have pointed out that the university graduation theses nowadays don’t have much scientific value, believing that students should not be required to write theses for the school graduation.

Most of thesis works are copied

Copying the thesis works of the previous-generation students is now the choice of many students. They copy both the ideas of the theses and the content of the works.

It is now easier than ever for students to seek materials to copy and process to write the theses of their own. Luanvan.com, tailieu.vn, luanvan.net.vn are the online thesis markets that every student knows.

One just needs to access to the websites, type the key words and choose the works suitable to them. After remitting money to the given accounts, students would be able to download the materials for use.

It is very cheap to write theses this way. A thesis work is sold at VND100,000 on average on the online thesis market. A new thesis work can be written within several days on the basis of recapitulating several theses with the same topics.

Students nowadays think copying others’ works is a normal thing. A mini survey on the issue has found out that 58 percent of students say this is an acceptable thing, while 75 percent said they plagiarized other works at least once in their lives.

Dr. Nguyen Van Ngai from the HCM City University of Agriculture and Forestry confirmed that a lot of students plagiarize others’ thesis works, but he said it’s very difficult to find out the sourced materials. Ngai and his colleagues once accidentally found a case of plagiarizing just because the student copied nearly 100 percent of the thesis work of a student who defended the thesis one year before.

“The copied thesis works don’t have scientific value and they don’t have creativeness,” Ngai said.

Theses, what’s it for?

University lecturers, who reason the existence of the “copy and paste” thesis works have suggested to remove the current mechanism which requires university students to write theses for the graduation.

Dr. Duong Anh Duc from the HCM City Information Technology University applauds the “no thesis” idea, saying that this is a growing tendency in the world. In the US or Europe, students nearly don’t have to write theses. Meanwhile, in Australia, students only have 3 years at universities and they don’t have time to do theses.

Ngai also thinks that it’s better to remove the current mechanism. “The writing of theses would help students improve their skills of processing and reporting data. But in fact, the university theses don’t have much scientific value,” he said.

“I think students will be able to graduate schools if they fulfill the numbers of learning credits required,” he maintained. The most important goal of the university education is providing students necessary knowledge, both theoretical and practical, and useful for their future jobs.

Vo Van Tuan, MA, Head of the Training Division of the Van Lang University, also thinks that no school can arrange enough lecturers for all the students who write theses. Therefore, he believes that it’d be better to set limitations on the number of students writing theses.  

However, many other educators do not advocate the idea. The HCM City Architect University requires 100 percent of its students defend their theses for the graduation.

Tien Phong