The curriculum for masters degrees in business administration (MBA) in Vietnam are unpractical, resulting in incompetent graduates, many educators said.
MBA training programmes prove of little use
Profs and Ph.Ds came to the conclusion at a national seminar in Hanoi on October 12.
Incompetent graduates
Dr. Doan Hong Le from Danang City’s Department of Customs said, “MBA training in the city has yet to meet corporate demand. The shortage of highly qualified MBA holders is becoming more desperate, especially in terms of key posts. As many as 46.14% of trained workforce in Danang failed to meet employer requirements.”
According to Le, a lot of companies complained that most graduates lacked practical skills. Their interview results revealed that many students were good at studying, but found it difficult to work in team or to demonstrate their ideas to group members.
“Our survey of 100 enterprises indicated that 85% of firms have to spend at least between three and six months training new employees who are fresh from MBA programmes,” he shared.
Many representatives from companies attributed the situation to the unpractical nature of the courses. Lectures paid lots of attention to defining concepts but neglected market realities, they explained.
Dr. Pham The Hung, Director of Vietnam Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (VINASME)’s SISME Institute, said increasing numbers of business leaders and managers are complaining about the quality of their staff. In order to deal with the problem, enterprises and schools should sit down together and discuss methods to heightening training quality in a bid to resolve the issue, Hung recommended.
Substandard curriculum, passive lecturers
Vietnam now has over 100 colleges and universities that provide MBA training. However, a lot of training programmes have little relationship with real corporate operations.
Associate Prof. cum Dr. Le Cong Hoa, Head of National Economics University’s (NEU) Business Administration Faculty, said most of the current MBA training programmes were a combination of previous curriculum for masters in economics, with new adhoc subjects picked from foreign universities. The process of building curriculum is subjective, unscientific, impractical and outdated, he emphasised.
Hoa said that many institutions just paid attention to their enrolment targets, instead of investment in teaching facilities and heightening teaching staff’s capacity. Their operations were in desperate need of reform, he added.
Many educators said the lack of highly qualified MBA teachers also added to the low quality of training. In addition, most of lectures spent too much time on making money by teaching at different institutions to offset their low pay, instead of improving their skills.