Article 9

Hard pressure burdens universities of excellence

A lot of questions about what the “universities of excellence” will do to list themselves among the world’s 200 leading universities by 2020 remain unanswered.

Big challenges

universities of excellence, leading universities, vietnam

Educators say there are too many problems that Vietnam has to solve to fulfill the task.

Building up a qualified teaching staff proves to be the biggest challenge for Vietnam in its way to turn the “international university dream” into reality.

In principle, the students of the international schools can study with foreign lecturers and follow international curriculums, which explains why these are “international schools” and tells the difference between Vietnamese and international schools.

International curriculums are believed to be much better than Vietnamese--which have been criticized as too academic and unpractical.

However, Professor Ngo Viet Trung, former Head of the Vietnam Mathematics Institute, does not think foreign teachers and international curriculums would be enough for the schools.

“How can students receive knowledge from the qualified lecturers if they are in Vietnam only for one or two months to give lectures?” Trung questioned.

“Research achievements are always an important criterion to be referred to when accrediting schools. How will the schools have “research achievements” with the visiting lecturers?”” he continued.

In principle, the problem can be settled if Vietnam can hire foreign professors to work for the schools for long term. However, it would be very difficult to invite good professors to Vietnam, even though the schools are willing to pay high to them.

Also according to Trung, employing Vietnamese lecturers for the permanent teaching staff is the only solution for now. However, the cooperation between Vietnam and Germany and between Vietnam and France would have not much significance, if the schools’ lecturers are mostly Vietnamese.

Another problem, as analysts have pointed out, lies in the incomplete training majors of the schools. In order to optimize the training quality, international schools in the world always cover many different training majors and have many faculties which can help each other.

The international schools in Vietnam cannot do this, because it is nearly impossible for them to invite enough foreign lecturers for all learning subjects.

Vietnam

still moves ahead with international school projects

Ignoring the doubts about the feasibility of the international schools, the Ministry of Education and Training still moves ahead with new projects on developing international schools.

In October 2013, Vietnam and Russia signed a document on the implementation of VRUT, the Vietnam– Russia University of Technology, in Hanoi.

Under the project, Russia would send its lecturers to Vietnam to teach at VRUT. Meanwhile, the Le Quy DonTechniqueUniversity would send its lecturers and students to Russia for internship period and upgrading qualification.

Prior to that, in May 2013, the Ministry of Education and Training announced the $150 million investment deal to create a state owned university of technology with Russia being the training supporter.

The project on the Vietnam– JapanUniversity, an interdisciplinary school, has also kicked off. It is expected to be built and run with the official development assistance (ODA) to be granted by the Japanese government. The school would be located in the Hoa Lac High-tech Zone in Hanoi.

In mid-September 2013, the government agreed in principle to the establishment of the Vietnam– UK Research and Training Research, belonging to the Da NangUniversity. This would be the Vietnam– UK University in the future.

Chi Mai, VietNamNetBridge