VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of students complained that though they have fulfilled the training curricula, they still cannot graduate from universities, because they cannot meet the requirements in the English skills stipulated by the schools.

Most of the universities in Vietnam have announced the standard qualifications for their graduates, i.e. the qualifications and skills the school commit their graduates will have.

The HCM City University of Agriculture and Forestry began applying the output standards for graduates from the 2008 academic year. The students of the school must meet the B1 level of the European scale.

The students, who entered the school in 2008, have recently attended the final exams. However, 21.8 percent of the students still cannot show the B1 level certificates; therefore, they still cannot graduate the school.

According to Dr Tran Dinh Ly, Head of the Training Division of the university, B1 of the European scale sets higher requirements than the national B level that schools once applied in Vietnam. Therefore, a lot of students cannot meet the standards.

“I know many students who are very good at their majors, but still cannot have B1 level certificates and they still cannot finish school,” he said.

Ly also said that the students who have TOEFL 400, TOEIC 450, IELTS 4.5, PET 70, BULATS 40 would also be recognized as meeting the output standards.

The University of Technology and the Economics University, the member schools of the Da Nang University, have also required the B1 standards and TOEIC 400 on their students to be able to graduate from the schools.

However, the standards seem unattainable to many students. A survey conducted by the University of Technology has found out only 20-30 percent of students can follow the English curriculum designed for university students in accordance with the Ministry of Education (10 credits), when they enter a new academic year. Meanwhile, the other 70 percent have to attend preparatory classes before attending official classes.

Meanwhile, Tran Cao Vinh, Head of the Training Division of the HCM City University of Natural Sciences, said his school only requires B level certificate, though B level certificate would surely not be able to satisfy the requirements of employers. However, even with the low requirements, Vinh fears that the majority of the school’s students cannot meet the standard.

In the future, B1 level would be the required standards to be applied to all schools as stipulated in the national program on teaching and learning foreign languages.

Meanwhile, Hoa Van Binh, Deputy Dean of the Foreign Languages Faculty of the Saigon University, has warned that B1 would be an overly high goal for many students, saying that students still have not been aware of the importance of learning foreign languages.

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Bich, a third year student of the HCM City University of Natural Sciences, has noted that a lot of her classmates do not think foreign languages would be useful for them in the future jobs, therefore, they only spend time on learning some days before the exam days.

Bich also thinks that there is a big gap in the English skills of the students from rural areas and students from big cities. In general, the students from rural areas do not have the opportunities to learn English in a methodical way. Therefore, they find it hard to continue learning English at the universities.

Vinh agrees that four years at universities would not be enough for students to obtain fluent English skills, and that students need to have a good basis when they finish high schools to be able to meet the standards in foreign language skills when following university education.

Tien Phong