VietNamNet Bridge – Educators have voiced their worries about the current university enrollment process which has been described as “running after profit and ignoring the quality of training”.

 

The Ministry of Education and Training has been criticized as violating the law when allowing some state-owned universities to enroll students under the non-state budget mode. Under the mechanism, the students, who fail the entrance exams to the universities, still can study at the universities if they pay money and do not receive subsidies from the state budget.

 

The matriculation season for the 2011-2012 academic school has already begun, and universities have announced their enrolment quotas for the new academic year. Students have been reassured that the universities’ doors are fully open and that students will have more opportunities to access higher education. Many schools plan to increase the number of students to be enrolled this year. Especially, some “hot” universities have announced a plan to enroll students under the non-state budget mode.

 

The information has pleased students, but has worried educators.

 

Schools running after profit?

 

The Hanoi Medical University, Finance Academy, the Hanoi University for Foreign Trade and the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology all plan to enroll students under the non-state budget mode.

 

The Hanoi Medical University, for example, will enroll 200-300 students under the non-state budget status. The HCM City Medical University has announced that it would enroll more than 500 students. Meanwhile, the Hanoi University for Foreign Trade has announced that it would have 300 seats for students to study under the non-state budget mode. These will be the students who received high marks from the university entrance exams but still below the required marks.

 

The above said universities are all popular schools and the demand for studying at the schools is very high. Therefore, even excellent students may fail exams to the universities.

 

However, Nguoi lao dong newspaper has quoted experts as saying that the non-state budget enrolment violates the Education Law and does not fit the current situation of Vietnam’s education.

 

The experts said that non-state budget classes once existed at state=owned high schools. However, such classes then were forced to dissolve after people realized that they would negatively affect higher education.

 

Number of universities increase, but quality does not

 

The information that many state-owned universities will enroll students under the non-state budget mode has specially worried non-state universities. Students nowadays prefer state-owned schools to non-state owned schools, and they only choose to study at non-state schools when they fail the exams to state-owned schools. Therefore, non-state schools fear that they will not be able to enroll students, if even students who fail exams still have the opportunity to study at state-owned schools.

 

Many educators also think that it is not a good solution to allow popular universities to enroll students under the non-state budget mode, saying that this does not fit the current circumstances of Vietnam’s education. If students flock to state-owned universities, non-state schools will sit idle because they cannot enroll enough students. Meanwhile, the State is calling for the socialization of education.

 

The educators said that in the policy on socialization of education, the government stipulates that semi-state owned classes must not exist in state-owned schools. Therefore, there is no reason for the Ministry of Education and Training to green light non-state budget classes at state-owned universities.

 

Source: Nguoi lao dong