In the Association's recent petition to the Prime Minister on the issue of Vietnamese university autonomy, the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges presented recommendations that the association has researched since 2014.
The Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges recommends that the State should not cut the budget of autonomous universities.
University autonomy should not be implemented simultaneously in all schools.
Accordingly, for public universities, the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges recommends that university autonomy should not be implemented simultaneously in all schools but that there should be a suitable roadmap. In addition, the state needs to have different levels of autonomy for university education institutions.
Legally, only 23 public universities are currently allowed to pilot university autonomy, the remaining universities are still operating under the management mechanism. Therefore, before implementing university autonomy on a large scale, the Government should periodically evaluate the pilot innovation of the operating mechanism of 23 public universities according to Resolution 77 (Resolution on pilot innovation of the operating mechanism for public universities in the period 2014-2017).
"However, in recent years, Law 34/2018/QH14 (Law on Amending and Supplementing a Number of Articles of the Law on University Education) and Decree 99/2019 (detailing and guiding the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Amending and Supplementing a Number of Articles of the Law on University Education), as well as instructions from a number of management agencies, have made universities and society mistakenly believe that all university education institutions are granted full autonomy," the document stated.
According to this document, through a number of recent surveys, it can be seen that many universities, including many large universities that have piloted autonomy, are not yet ready to voluntarily switch to an autonomous mechanism. Therefore, the state needs to divide public universities into three groups: autonomous, semi-autonomous, and non-autonomous.
Students of a public university on the opening day
"Do not equate autonomy with self-sufficiency in resources"
The autonomy of a school can only be given to a collective leadership (ie the school council), not to an individual principal. Otherwise, the principal can easily become a dictator. Therefore, only public universities with autonomy really need a school council.
Notably, the document stated: "It is completely unreasonable for the Ministry of Education and Training in recent years to direct the mass establishment of school councils in schools that have not yet been transferred to an autonomous mechanism and in schools where the governing body has not yet voluntarily given up its direct management role over university education institutions."
The association believes that eliminating the governing body or eliminating the governing body mechanism to prevent the "request-grant" management evils will help the school board have real power, but it cannot deny the extremely important leadership role of state management agencies and Party committees.
"Do not equate autonomy with self-sufficiency in resources as is currently considered. The State should not cut the budget of autonomous universities, but on the contrary, it should increase budget support for schools that have successfully implemented the university autonomy policy, considering them as places that deserve the State's investment to quickly improve the quality of these schools, helping them soon become national key schools," the document recommended.
Meanwhile, for private universities, the Vietnam Association of Universities and Colleges believes that Law 34/2018/QH14 and Decree 99/2019/ND-CP give investors too much power, even easily neutralizing the university council, which is inappropriate. Therefore, it is necessary to study, adjust and supplement to perfect the regulations for private universities.
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