The Government encourages public universities to manage their own funding in order to improve the quality of education and human resources, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said during a recent visit to Ton Duc Thang University, one of the first public universities to pilot the autonomous financing mechanism in Viet Nam.

The HCM City-based university was granted financial autonomy in 2008, meaning it could determine tuition fees and self-manage funding like a private university.

After seven years, Ton Duc Thang University has about 25,000 enrolled students and ensures that more than 90 per cent will be employed within one year after graduation, said university dean Le Vinh Danh.

The PM said financial autonomy was the only way to have excellent lecturers.

"Fair payments for good lecturers and officers and funding for facility investment can only be achieved through financial autonomy," said the PM. "It is one of the solutions to improve the quality of education at the university level, which is currently too far behind the world standard."

A decision to reform the financial mechanism of the public universities signed by the PM last October paved the way for universities to self-manage their funding and independently issue tuition fees in line with Government regulations. 

VNS