It is now a general fact that Vietnams rapid e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t i s g e n e r a t i n g unprecedented job opportunities for HE graduates which cannot be fulfilled in many professional fields. One of the numerous examples is the case of the Urban Management sector. As many, it faces a human resources shortage and has put the Faculty of Urban Management under big pressure to double 1 its number of students this year. Although Vietnam experienced a strong growth in higher education since 1990 (reaching 1,300,000 student enrolments in universities nationwide in 2007 compared to only 150,000 in 1990), this number lies still below the HE
Issue 4 April 08 April 08 Vietnam-Netherlands Higher Education project e-Newsletter In this issue: Editorial 1. Progress calendar 2. Profed study Trip 3. Zoom on Profqim 4.What's coming up next? e-Newsletter: Subscribe! sarah@vietnethhep.edu.vn Questions or comments?: We would love to hear from you! www.vietnethhep.edu.vn 2 4 11 14 16 EDITORIAL It is now a general fact that Vietnam's rapid e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t i s g e n e r a t i n g unprecedented job opportunities for HE graduates which cannot be fulfilled in many professional fields. One of the numerous examples is the case of the Urban Management sector. As many, it faces a human resources shortage and has put the Faculty of Urban Management under big pressure to double 1 its number of students this year. * Although Vietnam experienced a strong growth in higher education since 1990 (reaching 1,300,000 student enrolments in universities nationwide in 2007 compared to only 150,000 in 1990), this number lies still below the HE enrolment coverage of other countries in the ASEAN region. The problem is that the number and quality of teachers has remained almost unchanged in this last 20 years and this fact clearly demonstrates the limited capacity of the Vietnamese universities. The government is willing to change this trend. It has priorities to threefold HE student enrolments by the year 2020, while drastically raising the quality of Vietnamese HE graduates to provide the economy with the human resources it needs. However, these two goals may appear contradictory: it is commonly understood that a qualitative higher education system requires personal learning as well as interaction between students and teachers, this being incompatible with a massive growth in student's numbers (the so- called 'massification' of HE). In such a context, how to address the ambitious challenge of Vietnamese government to combine 'massification' and quality of HE nationally? “This issue is relevant to almost all countries in the world, also to The Netherlands” says Dutch Profqim consultant Linda de Mol “It's almost inevitable that an increase of enrolment in HE without (a lot of) extra financial means will result in a lower quality of both the educational processes and the graduates (…) it is only realistic and feasible if the budget for HE raises considerable. But the question remains….what is 'considerable'?”. In this perspective, Alan Gilbert, president and vice- chancellor of the University of Manchester states in 2 one of his articles* “Without a better per-capita funding or some radical new solution to the challenge of re-personalizing higher learning, UK HE may not be able to continue producing educated citizen and knowledge professionals the country needs.” He also refers to a report published 10 years ago by Sir Ron Dearing, recognizing that a “radical change in attitude and approaches to HE in UK” was needed and that “teaching in traditional ways with diminishing resources is simply not a viable long-term strategy.” Considering these statements, what adequate change and long term strategy does Vietnam need in order to obtain both more and higher quality graduates? 1 . A c t i v a t i n g s t u d e n t s ' motivation to lower the drop- outs and increasing the quality The first initiative is to ensure the motivation of the students throughout the process (starting at the selection phase). By doing so, the n umber of drops -outs (students who do not graduate) would automatically reduce, and thus the number of graduates would rise. Moreover, motivation plays a major role in enhancing the quality of the graduates. Motivation can be activated through many ways, starting with: a Leading the student to the right choice of study A survey carried out by the Career Consultancy Center revealed that more than 50 percent of students in many universities in Vietnam are not 3 interested in their field of study.* One of the reason is the lack of pertinent information available from universities to help the future students in their decision process. Recently, education and career orientation fairs have been organized to start solving this issue, such as the first “Youth and Employment Fair” held in Hanoi on March 18 and 19 2008. a Investing in new teaching methodologies According to Dutch Profqim consultant Linda de A new challenge: Ensuring Quality and 'Massification' of the Vietnamese HE system 2 Mol, the Vietnamese government should invest in modern teaching methods (aiming at developing both practical and soft skills of the students) in order to make its HE policy initiative realistic. Such modern teaching methods emphasize the student motivation through small groups' projects and are not compatible with the current high staff-to- students ratio. This ratio has never been so high in Vietnam (beyond 30:1) and keeps widening with the acceptance of part-time (so-called “in-service”) courses proposed to working people seeking promotion and higher salary. According to the Ministry's statistics, many teachers are now responsible for 70 to 80 students and have to skip part of their study programs to face the study needs 4 of this increasing number * According to Dr. Kim Dung Nguyen, (Vice - Director General of The Institute for Educational Research at HCMC University of Pedagogy and Profqim consultant), such large classes; the noise and disturbance it creates; the furniture that cannot be moved; the lecturers who teach as they were taught; and the standardized tests are currently almost excluding all possibilities to use any interactive teaching techniques. a driven way Unlike students from internationally-recognized institutions, students from Vietnamese universities do not always have possibilities to develop their soft and professional skills. The heavy theoretical knowledge and study workload do not reflect the concrete needs of the society. Therefore it is now high on the Vietnamese government's HE Reform Agenda to build new profession-oriented curricula. It has been partly initiated through the Vietnam- Netherlands HE Profed project since 2005. The first step of this project was to define graduate's profiles and competencies based on the indications from the World of Work (= labor market). Doing so, new study programs have been built in a way students could envision their future profession from the first semester and get more motivation from the start onwards. According to Alan Gilbert, it is judicious to clarify the learning environments and especially the learning outcomes to which the HE institutions would put enhanced educational resources before discussing funding arrangements themselves. In Rebuilding curricula in a (relevant) demand- the case of the UK, he strongly advises to pursue a “radical strategy in rebuilding curricula, not incrementally but around deep understanding of the multifaceted purposes of learning.” 2. Never lowering the requirement for new students Three folding the amount of new students is only acceptable when the requirements to new students aren't lowered (both in motivation and level of testing). Again, this challenge also faces world- class Higher Education institution as stated by Alan Gibert “(with the 'massification' of HE) the university must not only manage very large number of students, but also the broader spectrum of students' ability and motivation In the UK 'The overall quality of admissions” has been inevitably diluted in the process.” For financial reasons, between 1990 and 2006, the Vietnamese HE system has accepted 5 more “non-mainstream” students* (those with lower university entrance score) without realizing the effect it would have on other students and professors. More disturbing, 200 out of 357 universities and colleges have part-time (or in- service) students, accepted with much lower entrance points than officially requested. According 4 to the statistics of MoET* , they represent in total 834,000 individuals: more than 50% of the total number of students. 3. Keeping the students fees affordable for the masses As stated before, “considerable” funding is a prerequisite to meet the Vietnamese government HE goals. Vietnamese government is currently revising its tuition policy and will raise the tuition fees considering that the last scheme set about 10 6 years ago is no longer suitable* . According to Dutch Profqim expert Linda De Mol, raising the fees too high (for instance double or threefold) would obstruct the accessibility of HE in Vietnam, especially for people from poor families or remote areas. Scholarships for those students would cost a lot of money. So it is in the interest of Vietnam to keep the fees at an acceptable rate and only raise it by a small amount each year. More solutions are suggested in the "Zoom on Profqim" section P.14. EDITORIAL *1) Article “Urban management lacks key personnel”, Vietnam News Agency, dated 11-04-2008 *2) Article “Our overloaded system needs radical revision to cater for the masses”, Gilbert Alan, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester. dated 28-02-2008 *3) Article “Students shouldn't rush into programmes”, Vietnam News Agency,dated 25-03-2008 *4) Article “Part-time education comes up short”, Vietnam News Agency,dated 10-04-2008 *5) Article “Higher education revamp call”, Thanh Nien News, dated 01-02-2008 *6) Article “New tuition-fee policy goes to Government”, Vietnam News Agency,dated 21-03-2008 3 MARCH HIGHLIGHTS 1.PROGRESS CALENDAR 1.1 Profed consortium on Teaching Methodology The first session of the POHE consortium on “Teaching Methodology and Skills Training” was conducted in Hanoi from March 25-27 by three experts: Ms. Pham Thi Thuy Chi, Director of Transformation and Change Management Consulting Co., Ltd. and trainer/ consultant in institutional development, management skills and training of trainers; Ms. Pui Yee (MSc), Senior trainer/consultant in management skills, human resources development and organisational development at MDF Indochina Mr. Pieter Bon (MSc), Director of Business School & Director of Governance School, Fontys University of Applied Science, The Netherlands This “Training of Trainers” (ToT) consortium is the starting point of a long educational process that will be initiated at each pilot-university, first within each pilot-team level and later on to a broader academic audience. The main reason is to ensure the sustainability of the POHE curricula after the end of the project (2009) through understanding and acceptance of this new challenging POHE concept and related modern and interactive teaching methodologies. Subsequently, the overall goal of the two-tired ToT consortium sessions is to provide key POHE lecturers from the 8 pilot universities with the necessary knowledge and skills to improve their personal effectiveness in: Facilitating POHE teaching methodology (Training session 1) Self implementing ToT trainings for POHE lecturers at the 8 individual pilot POHE universities (Training session 2 planned for June 2008) æ æ 4 MARCH HIGHLIGHTS 1.PROGRESS CALENDAR The participants commonly agreed on 4 key learning methods to be covered in this first session as stated below: The interactive environment of this 3 days workshop leaded the participants to: Have insights in the key qualifications of Profession Oriented Higher Education Know how to apply the principles of adult learning and learner oriented approach Realize the different roles of a lecturer (facilitator, expert, organizer of learning process) Be able to choose and use interactive teaching methods Know how to create a learner oriented environment Have practiced various approaches for facilitating discussions and teaching 1.How to manage the involvement of the students in group work? 2.How to organize effective project-based learning? 3.How to encourage students to be active? 4.How to organize effective case studies 2 2 2 2 2 2 5 1) During the workshop on 'POHE Teaching Methodologies' you introduced very attractive ways of motivating students. Could you give us any suggestion on how to transfer these modern methodologies in the Vietnamese context? What would be the most relevant method to apply first? 2) With your company T&C Consulting Co., you have been very much involved in the private sector. Is this experience comparable with the one in Higher Education? What can the Higher Education system learn from the private sector experience and vice-versa? 3) What were your feelings on last March workshop? This is a very difficult question, I must say. As a trainer, I appreciate the creativeness in designing training and selecting the appropriate methods. Selecting the appropriate methods depend very much on the set objectives, the content of each learning session (and the size of class as well ). It is hard to say which method is most relevant without knowing the objectives/contents. However, I do believe that for Vietnamese students, who are not strong in team- work, the team-assignments are strongly recommended. This method enables the student to practice different interpersonal skills such as negotiation, meeting, conflict management, presentation, summarization, collaboration The team-assignment can be in form of a case-study; or "doing a real-life case analysis", etc. The advantage of conducting training sessions for the private sector is the high level of customization. In the private sector, trainings are designed to help solve specific problems/issues that the enterprises are facing. The trainees are strongly self- directed in learning. Training outputs/outcomes in private sector are measurable since it helps improve the employee's performance. Therefore it is motivating the people involved. In a broad sense, the Higher Education System should operate as the "training department" of a “Business” (in this case business is understood as “the Society”). This department has to organize its training activities based on the "Business" - the Society long-term objectives and needs and taking into serious consideration the current competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) of its "employees" - the students. I did like the atmosphere of the training which was created by the active participation of the trainees. I would like to prepare some more reference materials (regarding case-studies, team-assignment, and other trainers' guidance materials ). I saw the participants were interested in these methods because they are relatively easy to apply. The provided reference materials during the training were of a very good quality but with relatively little guidance or examples which were customized for university-lecturers (particularly for those in Vietnam). MARCH HIGHLIGHTS 1.PROGRESS CALENDAR Word of consultant Ms. Pham Thi Thuy Chi 6 Ms. Pham Thi Thuy Chi is Director of Transformation and Change Management Consulting Co., Ltd. and trainer/ consultant in institutional development, management skills and training of trainers. MARCH - APRIL HIGHLIGHTS 1.PROGRESS CALENDAR 1.2 Profed Expert mission in Thai Nguyen University on Education TNUE Profed team already signed a protocol on traineeship organization with their World of Work (WoW) Schools Network which was kick-started in 2007. During this April mission, a “trainee coaching workshop” was organized to assist the school teachers involved in this Schools Network. The World of Work Schools Network is now composed of 4 lower-secondary and 4 upper-secondary schools in the North Eastern area of Vietnam. With the cooperation of the Dutch experts from NHL University and their own Dutch World of Work Network of Schools in The Netherlands, the Profed team added an international dimension to their already existing network. The “International School Network” will provide mutual benefits for the university and the Vietnamese and Dutch schools involved. Through this network the pupils from both countries will get a chance to know one-another using modern communication tools on topics of interest, such as history, culture and life in general. These exchanges, carried out exclusively in English, will develop the interest in the foreign language from a very young age. In addition it will be used as a platform for school teaching staff to exchange professional ideas. In the long run exchanges of school's staff and pupils in the “International Schools N et wor k” w ill a ls o considered as an option. So far, cooperation a g r e e m e n t s w e r e officially signed with Doc Lap lower- secondary school; Chu Van An upper-secondary school and Langson's Vinhtrai l o w e r - s e c o n d a r y school. From March 31 to April 10, the expert team from NHL University (Mr. Jaap Jongejan, Mr. Ron Barendsen and Ms.Roelien Bos-Wierda) visited the Profed team of Thai Nguyen University of Education (TNUE). Apart from reviewing the first 2 years of the curriculum and working on the developments of year 3 and 4, two specific initiatives have been undertaken to expand the results of the project even further 1.2.1 International School Network kick-off 7 MARCH - APRIL HIGHLIGHTS 1.PROGRESS CALENDAR On Thursday April 3, the Profed team was warmly received in Haiphong University- FLF (Faculty of Foreign languages) firstly, to share as English teacher training colleagues the Profed experiences and lessons learned so far; and secondly, to establish a partnership in POHE teacher training focusing on the new teaching methodologies related to the POHE concept. The workshop was mainly focused on the use of specific POHE student projects as an interesting tool to introduce more interactive teacher and student practices within the set (core) curriculum. More specifically, it has been agreed to develop and implement at the FLF of Haiphong University the two following students projects: “Magazine” project and “Study Trip” project which were already successfully implemented during the last year(s) at TNUE. These student projects will allow the students to become more involved and active participants of their own learning process. The two student projects will be piloted and will not interfere with the currently run core curriculum at Haiphong university 1.2.2 POHE teaching methodology sharing with Hai Phong University 8 MARCH - APRIL HIGHLIGHTS 1.PROGRESS CALENDAR 1.2.3 Introduction to the e-Portfolio Part on the mission was also dedicated to capacity building. The Profed teachers of Thai Nguyen University of Education have been introduced and trained on the e-Portfolio tool. The e-Portfolio is a personal digital collection of information describing and illustrating a student's learning, career, experience and achievements. E-Portfolios are privately owned by the student and the student has complete control over who has access to what and when. Three kinds of e-Portifolios are usually distinguished: This e-Portfolio forms the basis for discussion between student and mentor. It may include CV, personal data, the student's professional view and examples demonstrating this professional view, etc. This e-Portfolio can be used as a monitoring and tutoring tool in which the students show his/her developments to the tutor. In this case, the student is responsible for collecting evidences reflecting best his/her competencies. For instance, the student is requested to provide evidences reflecting their “International competencies”; “organizational competencies”, etc. As the name indicates, this e-Portfolio reflects what the student is proud of. Personal Development Planning (PDP) e-Portfolio Assessment e-Portfolio Show case e-Portfolio 9 1 2 3 On April 10, the NEU Profed team hosted a meeting to introduce the complete POHE study program and competence matrix in “Travel Management”, finalized with the assistance of Dutch expert Frits Plantinga. Participants from NEU Board of Management, NEU POHE lecturers, members from the World of Work Committee, and NEU departments representatives (such as Registrar Office Department, Bursar's Department, Facility Department, etc.); discussed about the optimization of the study program implementation and the smooth coordination of all stakeholders at NEU and beyond. Two points received particular attention: APRIL HIGHLIGHTS PROGRESS CALENDAR APRIL HIGHLIGHTS 1.PROGRESS CALENDAR 1.3 Progress at NEU - Faculty of Tourism and hospitality NEU should consider creating an “Educational Support Center” to facilitate the teachers' transition towards competences-based, profession oriented, and a student-centred curriculum. This center is proposed to be run by Vietnamese educational experts, who would be supportive to teachers (and students) in quest for specific advice, knowledge and-or materials such as POHE guidelines, students and teachers handbook, etc. NEU lecturers need to become flexible and more creative in allocating the teaching time, number of students by classroom and students workload. Currently the number of traditional “inside classroom” hours per week are too high (30h/week whereas international standards are only 15h/w). By splitting the classrooms into groups, it would alternate the “inside classroom” time of the student; give more room to the lecturer for innovative POHE teaching formats like seminars, workshops, Problem Based Learning sessions, case-studies, practical training, simulations, small workgroup learning, mini- projects, etc. Last, but not least, it would invite the students perform stimulating homework outside the classroom the rest of the time. Without strategic decisions in organizing the classrooms and the “inside classroom hours”, it will be impossible to properly implement POHE teaching methods at NEU. 10 [...]...PROGRESS CALENDAR 2.PROFED REGIONAL STUDY TRIPS 2 REGIONAL STUDY TRIPS: Learning from “State of the Art” ASEAN Profession- Oriented Higher Education institutions Information sharing and learning from each other is core element of the Vietnam-Netherlands Higher Education project All Profed teams have received POHE expertise from the Dutch and Vietnamese consultants over the last 3 years Many went to... manner 13 3.ZOOM ON PROFQIM 3.1 QA versus Massification Higher Education by Dr Oliver Diane and Dr Kim Dung Nguyen The issue of ensuring both the Quality and the 'Massification' of the Vietnamese Higher Education (HE) system in Vietnam raised in the editorial has been addressed to Dr Kim Dung Nguyen, Vice - Director General of The Institute for Educational Research at HCMC University of Pedagogy and... revisions are also based on international standard curriculum in order to enable the transfer of students who wish to pursue higher education and/or post graduate overseas 2 Learning how to develop close links with the WoW (World of Work = labour market) The WoW is an important player in the educational and research programs of the visited universities The relationship generally started with the personal contacts... home country or another overseas location References: Carnevale, A P., & Desrochers, D M (2004) Why learning? The value of higher education to society and the individual In Keeping America's promise: A report on the future of the community college (pp 39-45) A joint publication of Education Commission of the States and League for Innovation in the Community College, Denver Retrieved December 24, 2007... accreditation Nowadays, with the increasing number of on-line institutions, the U.S has still to guard against it Realistically; the policy initiative to raise the quality of graduates and threefold the higher education system enrolment could be possible if an effective quality assurance system at national and institutional level is created, as well as powerful mechanisms to support and evaluate the quality... for each year (e.g how many faculties can be reasonably provided each year by discipline and institution, in this way the HE system is informed where there are possible shortages of faculty) 2 Give Higher Education Institutions (HEI) more autonomy in finance and curriculum (“academic freedom”) and at the same time requires them to be more accountable for the quality of their own graduates 3 Establish... lab equipment of the University for their business and even advertise their products through the university The industries fulfill a 3 dimensional role of: - Collaborating partners in education and research - Sponsors of education, research and chair professorships - Advisors for the department of consultative committees 3 Get more experience and advices on how to set up alumni network at the Faculty... completely realistic when considering the following aspects: Vietnam has already a shortage of qualified faculties and many of the highly trained faculty academics who received Western (Soviet and other) education during the 1960s & 1970s are beyond retirement age These academics can be hired as adjunct faculty but the question is for how long? Also, they are likely to get better paid in internationally... Committee The Committee objective is to facilitate technology transfer between the university and the community, to promote collaborations between the university staff, industry and overseas institutions of higher learning According to an associate Professor from NUS, one of the most important points is to ensure that Industries find their interest once setting up links with the university In the NUS instance,... written exam paper to oral tests, multiple choice test, presentations, etc In addition to attending classes, students get very often a chance to practice in real working conditions, for individual or team projects The visit of various laboratories/ centers demonstrated to the Profed teams how students can perform practical assignment with high level of professional complexity For instance, HCMC Nong Lam