VietNamNet Bridge - The Ministry of Education and Training’s (MOET) decision on setting limitations on universities’ training scale has raised strong opposition from schools.

MOET's decision on setting limitations on universities’ training scale has raised strong opposition from schools.

MOET has released Circular No 32 on enrolment quotas for university education establishments, stipulating schools must not have more than 5,000-15,000 students, depending on their training majors.

MOET has also named 18 out of 219 operational schools which have more students than allowed.

According to Do Van Xe, vice president of the Can Tho University, which tops the list of the schools with ‘more than enough’ students, in the past the enrolment quota was calculated based only on two criteria – the ratio of students on lecturers and ratio of schools’ floor areas on the number of students. But with the new regulation, MOET has added the third criterion on the training scale.

“As the number of students is limited, this may lead to a waste of resources,” Xe said.

Students at Can Tho University suffer the most from the circular because the school now has 32,000 students. This means that the school would have to cut 17,000 students.

MOET has released Circular No 32 on enrolment quotas for university education establishments, stipulating schools must not have more than 5,000-15,000 students, depending on their training majors.

An educator noted that under the draft regulation, the schools which have more students than allowed would have three years to cut the number of students. However, the official legal document does not comprise the provision.

As a result, schools now don’t know what they should do because they cannot expel students to cut the numbers of students to the allowed levels.

Xe of Can Tho University stressed that in principle, the new regulation needs to be designed in a way to avoid big changes which could cause shock to the activities of training establishments.

However, according to Xe, the new regulation cannot meet the principle.

Meanwhile, the president of one of the 18 schools noted that the majority of the schools with more than 15,000 students are prestigious training establishments. Most graduates of these schools can find jobs despite the large scale of training thanks to the good teaching staff and good facilities. 

Therefore, he commented, Circular 32 would limit opportunities to access university education for students.

“With the new regulation, students would not have the opportunities to study at good and prestigious schools,” he warned.

Some polytechnique schools have expressed their worries about the problems relating to financial capability once the new regulation is applied. Students of the schools have to pay VND7 million on average for every year of training. 

If the schools must arrange one lecturer for every 20 students, their current incomes from tuition would not be enough to pay for electricity, water, equipment and other regular expense items.


VC