This issue was raised at the conference summarizing the 2022-2023 school year and deploying key tasks for the 2023-2024 school year for the university education sector, organized by the Ministry of Education and Training at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology last weekend. Among many comments at the conference, university representatives said that the accreditation of training programs should be reconsidered.
Representatives of higher education institutions spoke at the summary conference of the Ministry of Education and Training on August 26.
UNIVERSITIES WORKING ON ACCREDITATION ALL YEAR ROUND
Associate Professor, Dr. Le Quang Son, Vice President of Danang University, expressed his wish that the Ministry of Education and Training consider the quality assessment of training programs. On average, each school has about 25 training programs. An accreditation center assesses 5 programs at a time, so 25 programs will need 5 years - exactly the same as the accreditation cycle of a school's programs (a certificate of quality accreditation is valid for 5 years - PV). "Thus, it can be said that a school has 25 training programs and a center is ready to do this, then it will do accreditation all year round. An average program costs about 300 - 400 million VND, if multiplied, the financial resources will be extremely large. Is the roadmap like we are doing necessary, is it suitable in the current context, it needs to be considered", Mr. Son analyzed and suggested.
The Vice President of Danang University commented: "I agree that we need to conduct program quality assessment, but if we set a roadmap for 100% of programs to be accredited, we will only do assessment all day long. Therefore, we need to rebuild the accreditation roadmap at the training program level."
Penalties for determining enrollment quotas and organizing enrollment not in accordance with regulations
Mr. Nguyen Duc Cuong, Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Education and Training, said that in the 2022-2023 school year, 6 administrative inspections, 36 inspections, and 11 specialized inspections were conducted. Of the total 80 inspected establishments, the Ministry's inspectorate issued 94 decisions to sanction administrative violations against 94 university education establishments. Among the violations, the most notable were the determination of enrollment targets and the organization of enrollment at different levels that were not in accordance with regulations; the conditions for opening majors and maintaining training majors were not met; the training program standards were not met; the organization and management of training at different levels and training methods were not strict, and the teaching volume was not met; the management records of diplomas and certificates were incorrect, information was not fully updated, and the certificates were signed by the wrong authority...
Responding to the concerns of universities, Mr. Huynh Van Chuong, Director of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training), said that universities should carefully study Decision 78 of the Prime Minister, which includes a roadmap for implementing accreditation. The State does not rush universities to carry out 100% accreditation within a 5-year cycle.
Mr. Chuong said a report showed that compared to 2020, the number of training programs recognized for quality accreditation increased by 40-50%, and in 2022 alone, it was done very quickly. "This means that in 2022 and 2023, the number of training programs accredited increased rapidly, especially training programs accredited by international accreditation organizations. To date, 399 training programs have met international accreditation standards out of a total of more than 1,200 training programs that have been accredited as of the end of July 2023," Mr. Chuong added.
Regarding the ranking, Mr. Chuong emphasized that this is completely voluntary for university education institutions, according to the law. Schools that meet the conditions can participate, but in general, the ranking is an accumulation of the process, following a roadmap of 5-10, even 20 years. The Director of the Department of Quality Management emphasized: "We will closely monitor this work at schools, including accreditation centers. It is necessary to have a roadmap to ensure internal and external quality."
Mr. Huynh Van Chuong, Director of the Department of Quality Management, discussed with schools.
Let accreditation not be a burden on the university .
Regarding quality assurance, Professor Tran Diep Tuan, Chairman of the University Council of Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy, also had an opinion suggesting the issue. "Many years ago when attending the international conference, I heard that two groups of schools like to do rankings: the top group and the bottom group of the system. Recently, news about universities around the world, recently in July, 52 leading national universities of Korea withdrew from participating in the QS ranking program. The reason is that they found the arrangement in the rankings inappropriate and disrupted the real quality of the schools," said Mr. Tuan.
According to Professor Tuan, since 2012, many major universities that train in medicine and law in the US have not participated in the ranking system. Quoting the author of an article, Mr. Tuan asked: "What should we do to finally free universities from commercial rankings?". From there, Mr. Tuan believes that we need to think more about the current university rankings.
Dr. Nguyen Quoc Chinh, Director of the Center for Testing and Assessment of Training Quality (Ho Chi Minh City National University), also had opinions on improving education quality assurance. According to Mr. Chinh, quality assurance consists of two parts: internal assurance and external assurance. However, schools are currently focusing more on external quality assurance, such as accreditation. Schools need to pay more attention to internal quality assurance.
Vietnamese universities still rely mainly on tuition fees.
Speaking at the conference, Nguyen Thu Thuy, Director of the Department of Higher Education (Ministry of Education and Training), said that resources for higher education are still very limited. In recent years, the budget for higher education has been only about 17,000 billion VND, accounting for 0.27% of GDP, but the actual expenditure has been less than 12,000 billion VND. In terms of actual expenditure, it has not reached 0.18% of GDP, much lower than other countries in the region and the world. Vietnamese universities still rely mainly on tuition fees.
Regarding this issue, Mr. Le Quang Son, Vice President of Danang University, commented: "Looking at the current trend of schools, we can see that we are expanding the scale of training to get funding to compensate for school activities. That makes it very difficult to ensure quality. We work in an expansionist way rather than in-depth, which is simply a way of "eating ourselves". In the long run, I find it very dangerous". From there, Mr. Son believes that there needs to be a financial mechanism for university education, because without appropriate investment, school quality cannot be improved.
To do this, Mr. Chinh suggested increasing the accountability of each educational institution and the Ministry of Education and Training. "Instead of self-assessment, should we publicize very specific data, such as input ratio, training resources, research, scientific article output... Currently, there is a regulation on 3 public disclosures, but it is necessary to set out the most core indicators that universities must publicize to society, through which society will monitor," Mr. Chinh raised the issue.
Regarding external quality assurance, Dr. Chinh also said that "accreditation has now become a burden for many schools" and suggested that the accreditation mechanism should be reviewed, in which accreditation of educational institutions is mandatory. "But with the program, should educational institutions with strong internal assurance systems and strong self-accreditation systems for programs be recognized for their self-accreditation mechanisms? Then, instead of having 100% of programs be accredited, it should stop at 100% of educational institutions being accredited. Then, recognize the self-accreditation mechanism for some institutions with strong internal assurance systems. This is a method applied in the world, which will reduce the burden on schools," Mr. Chinh suggested.
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