Nguyen Van Ang, deputy head of Education Ministry's Finance Department, said he saw no problem with capping student enrolment numbers for university despite opposition.
Nguyen Van Ang
Circular 32 issued by the Ministry of Education and Training stated that the total number of students at each university must not exceed 15,000. Ang said this circular was aimed to ensure that quantity will go with quality and it was already approved by the NA Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children.
According to Ang, only 18 out of 219 universities have more than 15,000 students so there was no ground to say that no universities could follow the circular.
Many universities have expressed concern that they would have redundant lecturers if their recruitment quota is capped. But Ang encountered that in reality many universities had received more students than they were capable of teaching and had to hire more lecturers later.
"We haven't seen any problem with the circular. This is the most suitable solution for the current situation in our country," he said.
He went on to say that if after checking the current number of students and lecturers, university recruitment quotas were lower than 2015, but higher than 15,000, then the ministry might allow it to recruit more students than regulated; but if student numbers were higher than 2015 then the figure for 2015 would be the university's cap on student numbers. The ministry would review each case and assign the most suitable recruitment quota for each university, he said.
