VietNamNet Bridge – Educators believe that the State should pour its money into the pre-school and general school education, while it is necessary to seek other investment sources to develop higher education.

Le Van Hoc, Deputy Chair of the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, the Youth and Children.

Le Van Hoc, Deputy Chair of the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, the Youth and Children, said he personally thinks the higher education universalization is an inevitable trend.

In recent years, the higher education system gets only 10 percent of the total 20 percent of the state budget allocated to the education sector. It is estimated that 500 universities receive money from the State budget, including the ones in the national defense and national security sectors.

According to Professor Tran Hong Quan, former Minister of Education and Training, now Chair of the People founded University Association, Vietnam only spends some hundreds of dollars a year to train a university student, the low rate which cannot be seen in any other countries.

Quan thinks that the minimum training cost should be $1,200-1,600 per student per annum.

It is obvious that such a modest budget cannot “feed” the whole education system.

“I think that it would be better to allocate the state budget to pre-school and general school education, while it’s necessary to look for another solution for university education,” Hoc said.

According to Quan, there is a principle to follow that the general education must be taken care by the State which aims to produce the good citizens for the society. Meanwhile, higher education, from vocational training to university training should be considered a kind of service which helps heighten the productivity of every person.

This means that the State only assumes the responsibility for general education, the training for public services, and training talents at key high quality schools. The university education should be relied on the universalization.  

Cao Van Phuong, President of the Binh Duong University, said the Ministry of Education and Training needs to consider setting up an open policy which allows all people to follow education at different levels, and allows the students who finish high schools to continue studying at universities.

“It’d be better for us to have a cleaner who has university education than a cleaner with no education,” he said.

“I agree with Quan that the State should not open more state owned universities. It needs to pour money into the schools that give training in the special majors which cannot be done by private schools,” he said.

“In the immediate time, the State should not make appropriate investments in the two national schools in order to produce talented scientists,” he added.

However, Hoc said, while calling for the socialization in university education, the State has not given them necessary instruments to develop.

The current laws stipulate that clean land needs to be allocated to build school. However, in fact, no school has got clean land so far. In fact, schools still have to pay money to get land.                              

The University Education Law stipulates that universities can follow the enrolment plans of their own and set up exam questions themselves. However, the Ministry of Education and Training has stated that any changes in the enrolment mechanism would only be made after 2015. This means that the provisions of the laws would be dignified until that time.

GDVN