Three years have elapsed since the day Project 89 received approval to improve qualifications of lecturing staff and managerial officers at tertiary education establishments. But no candidate has received support under the project.

Project 89, issued on January 18, 2019, aims to produce 7,300 more lecturers with a doctoral degree, thus improving the quality of lecturing staff and managerial officers and satisfying requirements on renovating education and training to provide a high-quality workforce for the country.

Under the project, about 10 percent of university lecturers would be trained to obtain a doctorate. Of these, 7 percent of lecturers will receive full-time training overseas and 3 percent would be trained in Vietnam. Eighty percent of lecturers of culture, arts and sports schools are expected to have master’s degrees or higher-level degrees after overseas and domestic training.

More than two years later, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) on May 13, 2021 released Dispatch No 1943, guiding the training for doctorate and master’s degree with the State budget within the framework of Project 89, applied to 2021 and 2022.

In early September 2021, the ministry issued a circular with guidance on implementing training of lecturers at higher education establishments under Project 89. The document took effect on October 24, 2021.

However, to date, no candidate has benefited from the project.

A university lecturer told VietNamNet that he registered to become a beneficiary of the project before May 13, 2021, but he has had no information about the program so far.

“If referring to the latest circular, you can see that the project has been delayed for a long time. However, what makes me very confused is that MOET has not provided any information about the program,” he said.

A source said that in 2021 alone, over 1,200 lecturers registered to attend training courses for doctorate within the framework of Project 89. The figure was 1,300 in 2022.

In October 2021, Nguyen Thu Thuy, Director of the MOET’s Higher Education Department, told VietNamNet that the State budget in 2020 and 2021 was prioritized to pay for anti-pandemic measures. Meanwhile, travel in Vietnam and abroad was restricted because of Covid-19. It was expected that the first group of lecturers would be granted scholarships under the project from February 2022.

At that time, a representative of MOET said the ministry was working with the Ministry of Finance to accelerate the completion of the management mechanism and fund allocation of Project 89 to ensure implementation in 2022.

The lecturer said that colleagues of his at Hanoi University of Science and Technology, National Economics University and University of Transport and Communications are looking forward to hearing about the project.

Dong Ha