Governance in higher education in Vietnam a move towards decentralization and its practical problems

Governance in higher education in Vietnam a move towards decentralization and its practical problems tài liệu, giáo án,...

Journal of Asian Public Policy, 2014 Vol 7, No 1, 71–82, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17516234.2013.873341 RESEARCH ARTICLE Governance in higher education in Vietnam – a move towards decentralization and its practical problems Thi Tuyet Tran* The University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam Decentralization, the transfer of decision-making authority, responsibility and tasks from higher to lower organizational levels, has been adopted as a policy in governance in higher education (HE) in Vietnam With the decision to move away from the traditional centralization in decision-making, the government expects to bring HE institutions more autonomy and accountability, and increase the effectiveness of the system However, the limited understanding and experience in leading the change, the unclear strategies for successful policy implementation, the overlapping functions among different related authorities and the lack of necessary financial support for the change, all hinder the effort to decentralize the system The reform in governance in HE in Vietnam also proves that decentralization is not necessarily a good thing, especially when the lower organizations who receive the power are not strong enough to create a positive change, and when the central ministry also loosens the control over the outcomes or the goals the lower organizations need to achieve Keywords: decentralization; centralization; governance; higher education institutions; Vietnam Introduction This paper will focus on decentralization as a government strategy in higher education (HE) in Vietnam In the first part of this paper, the theoretical framework of decentralization, which is contextualized from an educational research aspect, will be developed Under this theoretical framework, it is argued that in a complex and shifting environment, it is necessary for Vietnam to reconsider the governance in HE, though it still wants to retain the Leninist ideology Devolution to the institutional level, or in other words, giving more autonomy to individual institutions in the system, seems to be a way to ensure flexibility, accountability and diversity in the Vietnamese higher education system (HES) Nonetheless, the lack of strategic planning, the insufficient infrastructure and financial support for institutional autonomy, the unwillingness to release the power of the political party and the lack of expertise in leading the change have all affected the reform and thus, the decentralization in HE in Vietnam has not reached its expected stage of development Decentralization – a theoretical framework In order to set the framework for the research, this paper will clarify the range of meanings attached to the term ‘decentralization’ It will also distinguish between various types of decentralization in practice Then, the reasons suggested for the tendency of *Email: tuyettt@vnu.edu.vn © 2014 Taylor & Francis 72 T.T Tran decentralization in education and some of the motives leading towards the application of decentralization in education worldwide will also be identified Meanings and types of decentralization Even though decentralization has become a government strategy in different sectors in many countries all over the world, there is no agreement over the common definition of the term The word ‘decentralization’ ‘can mean different things to different people’ (Bray 2007, p 175), or in other words, it has ‘no precise meaning’ (Karlsen 2000, p 526) However, it is normally used to refer to the shift of responsibility and authority to the lower level of government The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) defines decentralization as ‘decentralization, or decentralizing government, refers to the restructuring or reorganization of authority so that there is a system of co-responsibility between institutions of governance at the central, regional and local levels according to the principle of subsidiary’ (UNDP 1999, p 2) Hanson offers a more specific definition of decentralization as ‘the transfer of decision-making authority, responsibility, and tasks from higher to lower organizational levels or between organizations’ (Hanson 1998, p 112) With this definition, Hanson distinguishes clearly the redistribution of powers and the redistribution of functions within and between government and non-government organizations (Bray and Mukundan 2004) Because of the complexities of meaning, it is necessary to differentiate between two types of understanding of decentralization: functional and territorial decentralization Functional decentralization refers to a shift in the distribution of powers between various authorities that operate in parallel (Bray and Mukundan 2004, Bray 2007) Territorial decentralization, by contrast, refers to a transfer of power from higher to lower levels (McGinn and Welsh 1999) The emergence of decentralization in education McGinn and Welsh (1999) claim that the need for decentralization in education comes from the political, economic, technological and financial environment in the end of the twentieth century First, the last two decades of the twentieth century witnessed the collapse of the Communist system, and disintegration of the western ‘Keynesian consensus’, both of which had favoured strong and centralized governments (McGinn and Welsh 1999, pp 27–28) They also marked the success of the liberal political ideology with its concept of democracy and market orientation After the fall of the Iron Curtain of the Communist governments, the world’s political landscape was reshaped There was no more support for the centralistic policies Instead, the market-oriented policy of the liberal ideology showed its superiority and has been adopted by many governments worldwide The market-oriented economy has been seen as the best way to allocate resources in the society Thus the market, not the government, should be the one who decides how resources should be allocated (Rizvi and Lingard 2010) Second, the development of globalization both economically and financially has actually weakened the central role of the governments The deterritorialization characteristic of globalization (Singh et al 2005) and the development of the supranational and international organizations have reduced national sovereignty In addition, the shift towards market-based decision-making has empowered local groups (McGinn and Welsh 1999) It allows local groups to decide on their own matters, and to gain more influence in society Journal of Asian Public Policy 73 Globalization and the market-oriented economic policy of the Liberal affects all aspects of life worldwide In education, the idea of lowering the unit cost with increased numbers of students within an organization has been started to be questioned; especially when the number of enrolments had doubled and tripled (McGinn and Welsh 1999, p 27) The centralized educational systems became huge in size and posed too much expenditure in the national budget (Sack and Saidi 1997) The central governments’ financial burdens and increased public dissatisfaction have resulted in the pressure to shift decision-making to smaller organizations (McGinn and Welsh 1999) Finally, the development of new information and communication technologies has also enabled the central government to both decentralize the management of education and still achieve high levels of control over the whole system In the new era of fast and cheap information technology, it is possible for the central government to shift the management of education to the local authorities, but still keep the control over the overall goals and quality of education (Cooper and Florestal 1997) This leads to a new paradigm of management which emphasizes attention on outputs rather than how these outputs are achieved Now the central government can, on the one hand, set goals for education, and on the other hand, give freedom to the local government to decide the way to achieve this goal However, the responsibility to control that these goals are reached is rested with the central government With the development of modern information technologies, the central government could now decentralize management to local authorities, lighten the financial burden from education and, at the same time, still keep close control over the quality output of educational systems The term ‘decentralization’ is often associated with the idea that the role of the government or the state will be weakened However, it is suggested that rather than being weakened, the role of the states in controlling the education sector in many countries has actually been strengthened (Hanson 1999, Hawkins 2000, Bray 2007) Regardless of whatever strategies or forms of governance, such as decentralization or centralization, are adopted, the state does not entirely retreat from the process In decentralization, the role of the state changes from the one of carrying out most of the work of education itself to determining what work will be done and by whom (Mok 2001) Nonetheless, decentralization requires conditions to be successfully implemented According to McGinn and Welsh (1999), the successful implementation of any kind of reform, decentralization included, needs two kinds of conditions to be met, namely the political support for the proposed changes and the capability to carry the changes of those involved in the reforms Several studies, such as Gershberg’s (2002) and Mukundan’s (2003), also suggest that when one or both of these conditions had not been met adequately, decentralization reforms have often failed to reach the objectives set for them Moreover, there is also another way of looking at the term decentralization which often refers to a movement of authority and responsibility from the central to the local, or in other words, to the periphery (territory decentralization) (Brown 1990) However, central and periphery can be seen as relative concepts depending on the context, because there normally exists both a centre in the periphery and a periphery in the centre So what is considered decentralization at one level may be seen as centralization at another (Karlsen 2000) Galtung develops a framework for this that he terms ‘peripheral centre’ (Galtung 1974) Decentralization, the increased autonomy for the lower level of the hierarchy by giving it more authority and responsibility, is not necessarily a good thing (Hawkins 2000) The question is: who is really receiving that authority in a very complicated educational hierarchy? Are they capable of making a positive change for 74 T.T Tran the whole system? Or if not, they may simply act as a centre of the periphery, and may create more centralization over its periphery In the following sections, some background information on the centralized governance in Vietnamese HE and its problems will be discussed The attempt to decentralize the HES of the central government, to increase institutional autonomy, will also be discussed as a solution for the problems of the system However, Vietnam does not seem to prepare well enough for the conditions to implement this reform, thus the gap between policy and practice seems to be large and complicated This gap will also be examined at the end of this paper Background of the Vietnam’s HES and its governance The long history under French colonization, and then the adoption of the socialist system both have shaped the centralized governance in every aspect of life in Vietnam, HE is no exception The centric role of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has remained strong in the system Until recently, MOET has still controlled most aspects of life in the HES in Vietnam MOET has been given the responsibility to prescribe the curriculum framework for all undergraduate courses, including ‘content structure, number of subjects, duration of training, time proportion between studying and practicing’ (Hayden 2005, p 9) The Education Law also reinforces the centric nature of managing the curriculum framework by confirming that MOET has responsibility for ‘compilation and approval of syllabi for common use by colleges or universities’.1 In addition to the curriculum, MOET has also controlled the most important decisions of each institution: course approvals, number of staff, number of students admitted and even the rector of each institution is designated by MOET (SEAMEO 2007) The university entrance exam, which is considered as the most important aspect of each student’s life in Vietnam, is also designed and monitored by MOET Apart from MOET, many public universities are also under their ‘line ministries’.2 Line-ministry control is a feature of HESs in the former Soviet bloc countries Most countries in the system have abolished line-ministry control over public HE For example, Hungary abolished it in 1993, China took the same decision in 1998 However, this feature has remained in Vietnam The line-ministry often has a strong voice in decisionmaking of universities as it ‘provides funds and management necessary for the existence of these institutions’ (Hayden and Lam 2007, p 76) In addition, each university has a Committee of Communist Party with the mission to make sure all activities of universities are not against the Communist ideology With that many layers of control, universities in Vietnam not have much room for their own voices and decisions Nonetheless, the government has realized that this management is no longer appropriate Political changes and economic development both have certain impacts on the ideas of change in the governance in HE in Vietnam After the collapse of the soviet system by the end of 1980s and especially after Doi moi, an economic liberalization policy in 1986, although Vietnam has remained a socialist country with the Communist Party in control, the economic liberalization had a significant and immediate impact on the economy, which was marked by a change from the central planned economy to a market-oriented one (Nguyen 2006) Since then, the Vietnamese economy has developed very quickly with the booming of the private sector Similarly, the Vietnamese HE sector has also expanded rapidly and it has moved from elite to mass HE In 1987, there were only 101 colleges and universities in the whole country, with a total of more than 100,000 students In 2012, by contrast, in accordance with the massification of Journal of Asian Public Policy 75 HE elsewhere, these numbers grew to 419 universities and colleges, and more than 2.2 million students (MOET 2012) This has put significant pressure on the government’s budget Every year since the introduction of Doi moi, the government has increased funding for HE, but still could not keep up with the demand of the ‘booming’ of the HES (Nguyen 2009) Moreover, it became an impossible mission for MOET to keep a closer eye on all activities of the whole system The Vietnamese Government has realized that the model of centralized governance is no longer appropriate for the HES, given MOET’s demonstrated weakness in managing the whole system, as well as the financial burden on the government budget, and the urge for change from the internal HES There is a desire by the government to ‘decentralize decision-making accountability to HE institutions for the purposes of achieving greater efficiency and effectiveness in the use of resources’ (Hayden and Lam 2007, p 81) There is an attempt to adopt the worldwide trend towards decentralization of decision-making authority from the government to the local level of campus control (Marcus 1997, MacTaggart 1998, McLendon 2003) The attempt at decentralization of the HES The decentralization policy in Vietnamese HE aims to increase autonomy for institutions in the system, to bring institutions the right to decide and be responsible for training, research, human resource management and budget planning With this design, the central government has been attempting to territorially decentralize the educational system in Vietnam The very first attempt to decentralize HE territorially was made in 1993 with the process of establishing the two National Universities (VNUs), which have been given privileged status in the system and can operate within charters given to them directly by the Cabinet However, the real attempt to decentralize the whole HES was made in 2005 with the implementation of the Education Law of 2005 and the resolution No 14/2005/ NQ-CP dated November 2005 on ‘substantial and comprehensive renewal of Vietnam’s tertiary education in the 2006–2020 period’ (HERA) Article 14 of the Education Law states that the Government decides to ‘exercise decentralization on educational management; strengthen the autonomy and accountabilities of educational institutions’ HERA represents the attempt and the desire from the central government to decentralize the system, to ‘switch public tertiary education institutions to operate under an autonomous mechanism whereby they shall have the full legal person status and the right to decide on, and bear responsibility for, training, research, organization, personnel and finance’ (HERA 2005, p 7) The government expected that the reform HERA would lead may result in a system that is ‘more flexible in providing opportunities for course transfer, more equitable, more financially self-reliant, more research oriented’ (Dao and Hayden 2010, p 133) Another objective of HERA is to eliminate line-ministry control and to ‘concentrate the state management on the formulation and direction of implementation of the development strategy; direction of operation of the tertiary education quality control and inspection system;…’ (HERA 2005, p 7) HERA indicates a new kind of relationship between the state and HE (Do and Ho 2011, p 15) which will give more room for the voice and authority of each institution in the system Obviously, the policy of decentralization of HE in Vietnam aims to give more autonomy to individual institutions in the system The most recent Decree 07/2009 TTLT-BGDDT-BNV and the Higher Education Law implemented at the end of 2012 also aim to bring more accountability, autonomy and self-responsibility for HE institutions For which, leaders of institutions are authorized to develop their strategic plan; to 76 T.T Tran set up, re-organize, integrate, separate, dismiss or suspend the activities of their departments They are also given more authority over recruiting staff and teachers However, leaders of institutions have to report to authorities for approval before implementing such decisions as the strategic plan, or the number of recruitments each year The gap between policy and practice The attempt of the government and the implementation of different regulations, decrees and instructions bring some positive changes in the system, which result in the expanding of the system and the increase in both the number of teachers and students However, the impact of this reform has been considered to be modest due to the lack of political support for the proposed changes, the unclear strategies and timeline for implementation and the weak capability of individual institutions in carrying out the reform First, there is not complete political support for the decentralization policy Though the desire to decentralize decision-making to HE institutions of the Vietnamese government is strong, there exists a tension between this desire and a political desire to ‘retain control of the socialist orientation of higher education’ (Hayden and Lam 2007, p 81) Although HERA attempted to empower public HE institutions, to give them ‘full legal person status and right to decide on, and bear responsibility for training, research, organization, personnel and finance’, the curriculum frameworks for the whole system has still been designed and managed by MOET With these frameworks, the Marxist–Leninist subjects have remained compulsory in all universities The rector of each institution has still been designated by MOET Then, because of the socialist orientation, institutional self-governance in Vietnam has been and will be unlikely to be accompanied by academic freedom and individual academic autonomy (Hayden and Lam 2007) The attempt to retain socialist orientation is not only represented in the way the government determines the curriculum framework for each institution, it is also represented in the way the government controls the school fee in the whole system The current school fee set by the government is claimed to be insufficient to fund the university activities However, there is a strong desire from the government to retain it in order to maintain stability and resolve inequalities in a socialist country At the moment, institutional autonomy is still considered as a pilot scheme implemented in only five public universities, and only with financial matters (Pham 2008) However, even these universities also claim that they not have real autonomy in planning expenses (University World News 2008) They are allowed to have their own right in spending their budget; however, the government funding for their universities decreases while they cannot increase the school fees above the level set by the Financial Ministry Thus, leaders of these universities often raise their voices complaining about the difficulties of universities in finding ways to increase the fund for their activities Institutional autonomy is an important aspect of educational autonomy (Lo 2010), and it implies certain freedom: the freedom to decide on curriculum contents and standards and the freedom to be able to exercise corporate financial control (Ashby and Anderson 1966) Vietnamese HE institutions not seem to have this freedom yet The second issue is in the policy itself HERA represents a strong desire of the Vietnamese Government to decentralize the HES, to increase the autonomy for HE institutions However, what seems to be absent is a sense of how HERA’s objectives are going to be implemented (Hayden and Lam 2006) Thus, until recently, institutional autonomy was still considered as a trial version in only a few public universities HERA also aims to eliminate line-ministry control over public universities This idea is Journal of Asian Public Policy 77 considered to be radical for the development of the system, which will enhance institution autonomy (Dao and Hayden 2010) However, this idea is not supported with any detailed plan of how it will be achieved Thus, until recently, the line-ministry control has still remained strong and has retained its strong voice in decision-making of universities For example, the Finance Academy (one of the five institutions implementing the pilot institution autonomy) complains that MOET allows them to decide on their own spending, however, when they want to replace their computers and projectors after years in use, the Ministry of Finance, their line-ministry does not approve this because according to their regulation, computers only can be replaced in a year cycle (Hong Hanh 2011) The third issue which reduces the impact of the reform is the weak capability to lead the change of the stakeholders As Dao and Hayden (2010, p 141) point out, both the State and HE institutions are struggling to find a way to implement HERA when ‘the government has no experience of what institutional autonomy implies’ Not only the government but also the institutions themselves are struggling to understand what institutional autonomy is and how to implement it, because the majority of the university bureaucrats are strongly conditioned by a culture of centralized planning, and cut off for so long from exposure to alternative forms of public management – [they] have no proper understanding of what institutional autonomy for higher education genuinely means (Hayden and Lam 2007, p 81) Thus, the institutions that have been given the right to exercise autonomy are still struggling to determine their own goals and programmes and the way to pursue those goals and programmes The case of Vietnam National Universities discussed below will illustrate this situation In addition to the lack of understanding of what institutional autonomy for HE means, universities in Vietnam seem to have many internal management issues to be settled First, most public HE institutions in Vietnam ‘do not have adequate administrative systems for the purposes of being able to exercise institutional autonomy effectively’ (Dao and Hayden 2010, p 135) Then, there is also no clear separation of power between the Governing Council (which include both the rector and the Party Secretary), the Communist Party Committee and the Board of Rectors, and sometimes it is hard to say whose voice is more powerful: the Party Secretary3 or the university rector The roles and responsibilities of governing councils and rectors are set by the Charter for Higher Education Institutions, however, there is limited guidance related to the role of the Party and the Party Secretary According to the Charter’s guideline, the rector is the one who takes the responsibility to develop institutional strategic plans that are consistent with Party resolutions, then submit these plans to the Governing Council for advises before issuing related policies and regulations.4 Nonetheless, in general, only regular Party committee members would hold positions as rectors or vice-rectors in Vietnamese HE institutions, and there are more and more instances where the rector also performs the role of the Party Secretary for their institution (Dao and Hayden 2010) The rector’s position is considered a ‘precarious position’ whose authority ‘will remain forever circumscribed by Communist Party policies and processes and a state disposition to govern by means of tight regulatory control’ (Hayden and Lam 2006, p 13) Nonetheless, traditionally, the rector or the Party Secretary not have to decide about matters related to the curriculum, programmes, institution infrastructure, or the condition of academic work With decentralization, more authority and also more responsibility are put on their shoulders; however, the financial incentives for them to take on this responsibility may well be negligible (Hayden and Lam 2007) The lack of experience, expertise and financial incentives may lead to the resistance of the universities’ leaders to the change (Ho and Berg 2010) 78 T.T Tran Therefore, years after the HERA, in 2013, the situation has remained similar to the time where the state was still in charge of making all important decisions such as curriculum framework, enrolment quota for each institution, training programmes, and also tuition fees and expenditure norms HE institutions remain strongly accountable to MOET and the line-ministries or the provincial governments Even in the case of the two national universities, who have been given much more right to decide on their own matters, evidence for a positive change is still rare The case of VNUs The case of VNUs is discussed here to illustrate the weak capability of the institutions to lead the change despite being given a privileged position in the HES in Vietnam They have direct authority and power over most of their decisions (particular financial) without the need of seeking approval from MOET They are not under any line-ministry and operate within the charters given to them directly by the Cabinet The presidents of VNUs are appointed directly by the Prime Minister and have ministerial-level status These universities have also been given the opportunity to generate their internal activities, including the curriculum framework, funding and expenditure (Hayden and Lam 2007) VNUs were established with the aims to set up the first multidisciplinary universities in Vietnam, to transfer more authority and responsibility to these multidisciplinary universities in order to build the first high-quality universities in Vietnam They are selfaccrediting institutions, so they are free, in theory at least, to choose to depart from MOET’s ‘theory-oriented’ and ‘heavy’ curriculum (Hayden and Lam 2007) The establishment of VNUs also aimed to bring lecturers and students the possibility of being in a multidisciplinary university, where students can have more elective subjects and lecturers can cooperate in their research across campuses Decentralization, which helps bring a more institutional autonomy, is considered crucial for HE institutions in Vietnam to enhance teaching quality and research output and the VNUs are often referred to as examples of such autonomy (Hayden and Lam 2007, Dapice et al 2008, Pham 2008, The World Bank 2008) However, with the given authority and power, VNUs not seem to be capable of leading the change expected, and to fulfil the expectation of the central government VNUs are not the same as other universities in the system They are, as suggested by Vu (2008), a collection of some existing mono-disciplinary universities After becoming members of VNUs, these universities have remained locally managed and been operating their own ways VNUs have failed to change these mono-disciplinary universities to a systemic multidisciplinary university directly under the VNU management board (Ho and Berg 2010) Moreover, although the VNUs have been established for nearly 20 years, there is no evidence showing that these institutions have made any changes to the curriculum framework, or departed from the framework provided by MOET (Hayden and Lam 2007, p 76) It is ironic that this lack of initiative from the VNUs has led to more rather than fewer complications and constraints, particularly for those universities, the so-called ‘member’ universities, who are under the umbrella of the VNUs This umbrella of the VNUs is yet another bureaucratic layer superimposed on the member universities who must follow the guidance of VNUs to generate most of their internal matters such as staff employment, or budget spending Since VNUs have not taken up the opportunity to change the curriculum framework, which is widely criticized as outdated, and overloaded teachers and students in the system Journal of Asian Public Policy 79 (The World Bank 1994, Stephen et al 2006, Nguyen 2008, Pham 2008, Hoang 2009, Tran and Swierczek 2009), they are effectively a kind of proxy-MOET in terms of curriculum framework, textbook approvals or the university entrance exam They have become one more bureaucratic layer in between MOET and member universities In most cases, these member universities are under more control than other universities who are directly under MOET Obviously, VNUs have become the ‘peripheral centres’, as suggested in the Galtung framework, who simply act as a centre of the periphery and place more centralization over its periphery (Galtung 1974) The ‘periphery centre’ role of VNUs also imposes one more managing layer for the ‘local’ managements of member universities For example, the rector of each member university seems to be under more control than before, as they have to ask for permission from VNUs for almost every matter in their university This is consistent with Bray’s claim that ‘although attempts to empower local communities may appear to be laudable attempts at decentralization, the fact that such communities may be dominated by factional elites may leave other groups feeling at least as marginalized as before’ (Bray 2007, p 192) However, when VNUs have operated for 20 years (since 1993) but have not reached their primary goal of becoming multidisciplinary universities with high-quality outcome, the government also has to take some responsibility Decentralization with whatever forms should not weaken the role of the government (Hawkins 2000, Bray 2007) In addition to setting goals for education and giving freedom to the local government to decide how to achieve the goals, the government should also take responsibility to control that these goals are reached (Cooper and Florestal 1997) However, that is not the case in Vietnam The General Department of Education Testing and Accreditation (GDETA), who takes the responsibility of governmental management of assessment and quality control for the whole educational system, was only established in 2003 (MOET 2008) GDETA is a department under MOET With less than 10 years of experience and limited human resources, the responsibility of establishing an accreditation system, of coordinating the tests for entrance examinations into universities and also of monitoring the quality of the whole system from preschool to tertiary education sounds too much for GDETA (Westerheijden et al 2010) GDETA has always been under-resourced for its responsibilities and overloaded with commitments (Westerheijden et al 2010) The loose control of GDETA over the overall quality of VNUs reflects both the loose relationship between MOET and VNUs and the weak capability of GDETA in monitoring the quality of the whole system (Hayden and Lam 2007) If VNU could not lead the expected change, it is unrealistic to expect a positive change from other institutions that are under much tighter controls and with limited access to academic funding It seems that the whole Vietnamese HE is now hovering in a nether region where it is neither properly decentralized nor centralized In this murky zone between the two, a lack of mutual trust results in inconsistencies and poor communication between the two operating systems The tension between the socialist ideology and the performativity culture, the unclear strategies for decentralization implementation and the weak capability of HE institutions to carry out the change all hinder the efforts to increase institutional autonomy for Vietnamese HE institutions The weak capability of the central government in controlling the quality output of the system is also worth mentioning Decentralization is the process enabling the government to change its role form controlling to supervision (Mok 2001, Bray 2007) However, in the case of Vietnam, on the one hand, the government does not seem to be willing to give up their power, on the other 80 T.T Tran hand, it does not seem to be prepared well enough to be able to carry the supervision task successfully Conclusion Obviously, the Vietnamese Government has started to adopt the worldwide trend of decentralization in HE management However, lacking experience and understanding of how decentralization might work in the local context, the Vietnamese policy-makers did not seem to be practical when designing HERA The list of 32 objectives of HERA has stayed as a wish list and seems to be unreachable under the current conditions The government does need to bring a more feasible plan for its HES to increase their accountability and autonomy Moreover, decentralization, the transfer of decision-making authority, responsibility and tasks from the central ministry to lower organizations does need strong support from political forces When the design to retain control of socialist orientation of HE is still vividly alive, it is hard for institutions to have their substantial autonomy, or the freedom to decide on their own matters Nonetheless, even when given much freedom in decisionmaking accountability like the case of VNUs, VNUs seem to lack capability to take the power When VNUs, the lower organizations who receive the power, are not strong enough to create a positive change, and when the government does not seem to be capable of monitoring the quality of VNUs, VNUs have become new ‘periphery centres’, or in other words, a new layer of management over their member universities Thus, instead of increasing the autonomy for its member institutions, VNUs virtually place more centralization over its periphery, the member universities Since decentralization has ‘no precise meaning’ (Bray 2007, p 175) and can ‘mean different things to different people’ (Karlsen 2000, p 526), since institutional autonomy can come in a variety of forms and there is no set template for it (Bray 2007, Hayden and Lam 2007), Vietnam does need to engage in the process to discover, to design or to create its own form of institutional autonomy This form needs to take into account the political importance of the Communist Party in Vietnam, the current governance infrastructure across the system and the long-lasting culture of centralized planning and bureaucratic decision-making in Vietnam Notes Education Law, 2005, Section 4, Article 41 For example: University of Health is under the Ministry of Health, University of Agriculture is under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural 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