Many universities nationwide have opened new departments of learning, despite failing to meet the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET)’s requirements on the number of doctors and masters.
MoET has recently released the result of an inspection on 24 universities, which found that many of them have continued to launch new departments without qualified faculty.
Under the ministry’s regulations, to open a new department, universities must have at least one doctor and three masters in the area. However, the survey indicated that, up to 41 newly-opened ologies in 16 universities have no doctors and 12 even have no masters.
According to the inspection, 12 departments in four universities, Chu Van An University, Luong The Vinh University, Nguyen Trai University and Da Nang Architecture University were suspended from enrolling students because they do not have lecturers with doctoral and master degrees.
Both private and public universities continued to open departments which failed to meet the faculty standards, including Hanoi University of Industry and Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry.
Nguyen Huy Bang, Chief Inspectorate of MoET, said that universities gave different reasons to explain the shortage of doctors and masters for new branches of study. A number said that, initially, they had enough candidates with doctorate degrees in the beginning, but later the doctors moved to other universities.
Some others even claimed that their doctors have suddenly died and they haven't had time to recruit more.
However, Bang, noted that, “We found that the universities simply failed to attract lectures with doctorate degrees. The prestige of many of these universities remains low.”
The inspection also revealed that state management over universities remains lax, giving them the chance to get around regulations on the training of teachers.
The Deputy Minister of Education and Training, Bui Van Ga said, “No regulation allows universities to have 70-80 students per lecturer . They are also not allowed to open a new departments without lecturers who have obtained at least a bachelor degree.”
