VietNamNet Bridge – Reforming training curricula with a focus on applied sciences and producing graduates who can satisfy employers’ requirements are two solutions that universities plan to apply to current tertiary-level programs.

Dr. Pham Thi Ly from HCM City National University, said that bachelor’s degrees had lost their value and warned that many schools would have to shut down in the future because of lowered enrollment.

She called on schools to “renovate themselves” by turning into profession-oriented instead of research–oriented ones.

This would mean that the schools should produce graduates who can work in different branches of the national economy, not workers who devote their lives to scientific research.

An international consultative group, which conducted a report on the restructuring of Vietnamese education, suggested developing a system of universities in which research-oriented students only account for five percent of the total number of students.

This means that most of the universities in Vietnam in the future need to put emphasis on training for careers in the professions.

Siep Littooij, co-director of the Profession Oriented Higher Education project, noted that employers are not satisfied with the training quality because they see candidates who cannot meet their job requirements.

In fact, many schools in Vietnam have been pursuing training curricula which put an emphasis on practice and skills useful for students’ future jobs.

Bui Anh Tuan, head of the Higher Education Department under the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), said the profession-oriented higher education program has been deployed since 2010.

It has been applied at eight schools where 2,200 students have graduated and another 6,000 students are now studying. More than 500 businesses have joined the program.

Dr. Do Van Dung, president of the HCM City University of Technique Education, said his school has been reforming training curricula for years because the others were out of date.

However, Dung said, the reform should be carried out methodically on a large scale at all universities in Vietnam, not just at some schools.

Regarding higher education quality, educators noted that while Vietnamese schools are very selective when enrolling students, they do not attach much importance to the graduate students’ quality. As a result, university graduates are not qualified for many jobs.

Dr. Pham Do Nhat Tien, former assistant to the Minister of the Ministry of Education and Training, said this was a “flaw” of the national education system, and that it needed to be fixed as soon as possible.

Mai Thanh