Merge or convert?

Quang Nam Medical College owes 114 employees 6 months of salary, totaling more than 5.7 billion VND. This unit is also behind on insurance payments for many months. Similarly, 136 officials and employees of Quang Binh University have not received their salaries for 2 to 7.5 months.

A lecturer working at Quang Nam Medical College said he hopes there will be a long-term solution to avoid this kind of salary arrears so that staff and lecturers can work with peace of mind.

CREATE YOUR OWN INCOME SOURCE, REORGANIZING YOUR TEAM

According to the leaders of Quang Binh University, the root cause of the salary arrears comes from the enrollment work. The large number of lecturers and workers as present was recruited by the school at a time when the school was still recruiting a large number of students (at times 10,000 students). But now, the school only has more than 1,000 students, more than half of whom are pedagogical students... so the revenue has decreased. Currently, the facilities of Quang Binh University are very large, including many buildings serving many different purposes but most of them are not used or not used at full capacity.

Enrollment at Quang Binh University is currently very difficult, leading to no source of income to pay salaries to teachers and staff.

Regarding this issue, the Provincial Party Committee and People's Committee of Quang Binh province have held many meetings and issued many documents to resolve the issue. However, up to now, the best solution has not been found.

In the immediate future, the leaders of the Quang Binh Provincial People's Committee have requested Quang Binh University to temporarily postpone the debt of at least VND 7.5 billion in salaries of lecturers and staff over the past 8 months; at the same time, they have directed relevant sectors to plan to allow the school to advance about VND 2.5 billion in training funds for general education teachers in 2024 to temporarily pay workers before the Lunar New Year 2024.

In addition, the functional sector created conditions for the school to carry out 10 provincial-level scientific research projects this year to bring in a certain source of income. At the same time, the school reviewed its facilities to rent them out for community sports and arts activities, both to limit degradation and to generate income for the school.

Quang Binh Province also requested Quang Binh University to promote the spirit of dynamism and creativity in carrying out the tasks of training, fostering and researching scientific topics to create a source of revenue to ensure operations. The important thing is that the school's Board of Directors needs to urgently review, develop and complete the project to rearrange the staff and lecturers in a streamlined and effective manner, gradually implementing to ensure the roadmap for financial autonomy according to regulations.

Meanwhile, the school leaders said that they will postpone the contracts of lecturers who do not have enough teaching hours or do not have teaching hours. It is expected that there will be about 39 cadres, lecturers and staff on this list, the expected time is from February to August 2024, after which the calculation will continue.

Many lecturers of the school also proposed "self-rescue" plans. "It is possible to develop IT and foreign language centers; establish cultural and sports centers, and provide after-hours training. Because the school currently has surplus human resources and facilities," said a lecturer. There are also some bold opinions that Quang Binh University should open more inter-level high schools... However, these ideas are only at the proposal level and have not been licensed by competent authorities.

Quang Nam Provincial People's Committee believes that Quang Nam Medical College plays a very important role in training medical staff.

UPGRADE SCHOOL STANDARDS?

Mr. Tran Anh Tuan, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Quang Nam province, said that the province is very concerned about the issue of unpaid wages for workers, and the People's Committee of the province will resolve it. "This school plays a very important role in training medical staff, so it cannot stop operating and must continue to exist. The province's goal is to build this school into a standard school in the region," Mr. Tuan affirmed.

Mr. Tuan also said that the province continues to review and propose to supplement and revise Resolution 36/2021/NQ-HDND (regulations on decentralization of revenue sources, expenditure tasks and allocation norms for regular expenditure estimates of local budgets at all levels) in the direction that is most beneficial for the Medical College to resolve current shortcomings and problems. Along with that, the school is required to reorganize its apparatus and organization to be streamlined, suitable but capable of meeting the school's development in the coming time.

PRACTICE OF GENERAL EDUCATION IN COLLEGES

Quang Tri Pedagogical College was also in a "difficult" situation when it had a large facility and high-quality teachers, but no students. However, the school "saved" itself when it proposed and was allowed by the People's Committee of Quang Tri province to establish Quang Tri Pedagogical College Inter-level High School within Quang Tri Pedagogical College. With an investment of 3.9 billion VND from the province, this school with a tradition of over 60 years of construction has urgently renovated and repaired its infrastructure system to suit the inter-level high school system. From the 2020-2021 school year up to now, the school has recruited hundreds of students from all grades each year.

Students of Quang Tri Pedagogical College Inter-level High School

Nghe An province has 3 schools: Nghe An Pedagogical College, Nghe An College of Culture and Arts and Nghe An University of Economics managed by the province, established decades ago. In 2014, Nghe An College of Economics was upgraded to Nghe An University of Economics. However, the school's enrollment is also very difficult, at times only recruiting 150 students per year.

Similarly, the remaining two colleges have also had difficulty recruiting students in recent years despite having excellent facilities. To maintain their existence, since 2020, the Nghe An Department of Education and Training has allowed this school to open a pedagogical practice school, recruiting students for primary and secondary schools. Over the past 3 years, the school has recruited 240 students from grades 1 and 6 each year for training.

Salaries will be paid to lecturers before Lunar New Year

The People's Committee of Quang Nam province agreed to freeze the debt for the training fund that did not meet the target of Quang Nam Medical College from 2020 and earlier, an amount of more than 15.5 billion VND. Temporarily postpone the deduction of the budget estimate of Quang Nam Medical College from 2023 - 2025 (1.9 billion VND per year) to have funds to pay salaries for officials, lecturers and workers. In addition, temporarily postpone the deduction of the 2023 budget estimate of more than 1.3 billion VND that Quang Nam Medical College gave to its general hospital in advance in 2021; temporarily provide funds to pay salaries and benefits for officials, civil servants and workers before the Lunar New Year 2024.

Manh Cuong

Merging into universities, is there "old wine in new bottles"?

According to statistics, Quang Tri has Hue University Branch, 3 colleges, 3 secondary schools with a total of 1,510 students studying. Most of the schools are facing difficulties in recruiting students. Therefore, in a meeting with Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son in July, the leaders of Quang Tri Provincial People's Committee proposed that the province coordinate with Hue University to develop a project to submit to the Ministry of Education and Training to study the establishment of Quang Tri University under Hue University on the basis of merging Quang Tri Pedagogical College with Hue University Branch in Quang Tri.

On January 2, the Standing Committee of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee agreed to merge 3 schools: Nghe An Pedagogical College, Nghe An College of Culture and Arts and Nghe An University of Economics into Nghe An University.

However, many people are concerned about whether the merger will help these schools become good universities or follow in the footsteps of some schools in other provinces. Nghe An currently has Vinh University, which has been training in many majors for many years and is considered a school with good tradition and quality. However, in recent years, this school has also struggled to recruit students, not to mention that in Nghe An there are other universities with extensive training experience. A leader of the school about to be merged shared that the merger is also a way to help these schools overcome difficulties, but if there is no good plan to improve the quality of the school, it will be "old wine in a new bottle", and difficulties will remain, even though it is a university.

Khanh Hoan - Nguyen Phuc

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