Over the last 15 years, the contingent of university graduates has increased rapidly in quantity. They work in many different fields, making important contributions to socio-economic development and ensuring national defense and security.

However, in the field of science and technology, the number of researchers per 10,000 people remains low compared with other regional countries.

A report from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) showed that Vietnam only has 15.6 researchers per 10,000 people. The total number of researchers with a doctorate is 30,000.

According to Quan, training in science and technology is not closely linked with the socio-economic development strategy. There is a big gap in the number of students of different majors, while the number of postgraduates is on the decrease.

The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has also reported that the number of postgraduates in the majors related to science and technology has been decreasing over the last three years. In 2019, there were 1,379 postgraduates, while the figure dropped to 1,010 in 2021.

In universities, the number of students enrolling in IT increased from 46,173 in 2019 to 56,260 in 2022. In general, universities can enroll enough students for the major.

But they can only enroll 50 percent of students they want for natural and life science majors. In particular, very few students register to study Oceanography and Geology. The total number of students enrolling in these majors is less than 30 percent of total students. The proportion of students registering to study mathematics and science and technology is low.

Quan said the ratio of state budget allocated to higher education to GDP is low, just 0.25-0.27 percent, while the figures are much higher in other regional countries – 0.6-1 percent.

He emphasized the low proportion of excellent university graduates who want to work for state agencies.

“We conducted a survey with 20,000 students of the HCM City National University and found that only 10.21 percent of excellent students, 5.79 percent of good students and 7.71 percent of average students want to work for state agencies,” he said.

“The survey has also found that 15.6 percent of students wanted to work for central agencies in Hanoi and 44.8 percent for HCM City,” he said.

Le Huyen