FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY AND OTHER RELATING ISSUES
4. The situation of Vietnamese higher education
Regarding the management structure of the higher education system, in 2019, there were 236 higher education institutions nationwide. For more detail, 5 universities, 90 universities are under ministries and ministerial-level agencies (excluding institutions of higher education such as academies, universities under the government, universities under the military and police system); 22 public universities are managed by the province; 65 non-
public higher education institutions in which there are a number of institutions with 100%
foreign investment such as RMIT University, Fulbright University, British University in Vietnam, Tokyo Medical University... Thus, Vietnam has fulfilled early the target of Decision 37 (Table 1).
Table 1: Status of the system of higher education institutions in Vietnam up to 2018 Unit: Institutions School year of 2017 - 2018
The target of Decision 37
Total Public Non-
public
Higher education institutions 236 171 65 224
Universities 5 7
Universities under ministries and ministerial-level agencies
90 Provincial public-higher-education
institutions
22
Source: Mai (2019).
The distribution of higher education institutions by region and territory in Vietnam shows that, except for the Northern Midlands and Mountains, the Central Highlands and the Mekong River Delta, the basic development indicators of higher education has been completed in all remaining economic zones under the standard of Decision 37. In which, the Red River Delta and the Southeast are the two regions with the largest number of higher education institutions nationwide. The Central Highlands is the economic region with the lowest number of higher education institutions. Although the number of newly established educational institutions in the Red River Delta region is the highest in term of comparing the present time with the target to be achieved in 2020 of Decision No. 121/2007/QD- TTG, however, the North Central and Central Coast regions have the highest growth rates of higher education institutions. In these two regions, the current number of higher education institutions is 3 times higher than the number of higher education institutions operating in 2004 (which is the period before the setting of higher education development goals to 2020 according to Decision No. 121/2007/QD-TTG).
For developing training sector, the objectives of developing training derived from HERA and Decision 37 have been adjusted. According to Circular 06/2018/TT-BGDĐT, seven new training majors are established on the basis of merging and supplementing previously issued training disciplines. Among 7 majors at universities in Vietnam currently, the third and fifth majors have the highest number and percentage of students. Many “most favourite” international training programs have been researched and put into teaching in Vietnam in the context of the development of the industrial revolution 4.0 in addition to
popular training programs in economics, business, management and law in most Vietnamese higher education institutions.
Table 2: Results of the implementing the target on distribution of university networks in Vietnam
Unit: Higher education institutions
Economic zones
Goals to 2020 (Decision No.
121/2007/QĐ-TTG)
Economic zones Goals to 2020
(Decision 37) Present
Northwest region 3 Northern Midlands
and Mountains
15 14
Northeast region 10
Red River Delta Region
125 (61 universities and 43 colleges in
2004)
Red River Delta Region
91 103
North Central 45 (11 universities and 11 colleges in 2004)
North Central Region and Central
Coast
38 43
South Central Coast
60 (10 universities and 21 colleges in 2004) the Central
Highlands
15 (4 universities and 6 colleges in 2004)
Central Highlands
5 4
Southeast region 105 (47 universities and 43 colleges in
2004)
Southeast region 55 55
Mekong Delta Region
70 (6 universities and 18 colleges in 2004)
Mekong Delta Region
20 17
Source: Mai (2019).
4.2. Necessity of higher education autonomy in Vietnam
One problem with Vietnamese universities is that tuition fees are relatively low, compared to other countries in the world, but they are high compared to people's incomes (Mai, 2019). Although there are 237 universities, by 2020, Vietnam has only 8 educational universities ranked in the top 500 leading educational universities in Asia, and 7 of which are public education institutions, and the left 1 one is a private higher education institution. Also according to the QS ranking, by 2020 Vietnam will have 2 higher education institutions in the top 1000 universities in the world, which is less than the ranking of THE (with the addition of University of Science and Technology). According to the rankings of Shanghai Jiaotong University, there can also be Ton Duc Thang University of Vietnam in the top 1000 most prestigious universities in the world (QS world ranking 2020). Studies on university autonomy in Vietnam such as Anh et al (2020), Vo and Laking (2020) show that: if
universities could be autonomous, at least financially, they would have ability to promote their own capacity in finding funding sources, developing training programs as well as improving the ability to publish internationally. Relying on the state budget in too long time can reduce the capacity of schools, affect training development in the country, and also cause a waste of resources for society. Therefore, the government issued Decision 77/NQ-CP on the issue of university autonomy.
Since Resolution No. 77/NQ-CP was issued, up to now, there are 23 public higher education institutions under ministries and state department that have been approved by the Prime Minister for prolonging the project of renovating the school's operation mechanism under Resolution 117/NQ-CP at the regular Government meeting in October 2017. Resolution 117/NQ-CP affirms that the institutions Higher education and vocational education institutions that have been assigned to pilot implementation according to Resolution No.
77/NQ-CP dated October 24, 2014 of the Government will continue to implement until the Government Decree on regulations which define the autonomy mechanism of public higher education institutions and the Government's Decree providing for the autonomy of vocational education institutions takes effect. Participating in the pilot under Resolution No. 77/NQ-CP, the piloted higher education institutions are empowered to proactively associate with foreign universities, or use international training programs to build new universities, integration training program. International curricula are taught with the participation of domestic and foreign lecturers… without consulting the governing agens.
These higher education institutions have made great efforts to innovate the methods of school management and administration in order to increase savings, strengthen control over expenditures, implement accountability,... Besides, the social responsibility of higher education institutions is maintained through such contents as tuition fee exemption and reduction for policy beneficiaries; guarantee scholarships to students with excellent academic achievements.
4.3. Issues of higher education autonomy in Vietnam Operational autonomy
Before the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Higher Education Law officially took effect, the School Council was not completely established at all public higher education institutions participating in the autonomy pilot universities. For higher education institutions that already have a school council, the number of members of the school council is five in the prescribed number, with a minimum of 15 people and a maximum of 25 people. School Board members are established in a relatively modest number and proportion of women. Because there is no school council, the establishment of faculties, institutes, centers or departments depends on the decision of a few people. At the moment, the structure of the schools is still decided by themselves, not influenced by the higher authorities.
Table 3: Results on the issue of operational autonomy in universities
Questions Means
The degree of autonomy in the establishment, separation and merger of service units under the school
3.57
The degree of autonomy in the establishment, separation and merger of faculty units, institutes and subjects participating in training in the university
3.12
The degree of autonomy in the establishment, separation and merger of administrative units of the school
4.27
Note: 1 - completely absent, 2 - low, 3 - average, 4 – high, and 5 - very high.
Source: Authors’ reseach.
Among the answers, the most obvious of the reviews is that it is easy to set up units at universities, because the governing unit does not intervene, but merger or dissolution is not easy. Although there is a certain degree of autonomy, respondents all think that public universities are quite cumbersome, and that re-entry is not much of a problem from the government side, but there are obstacles from within. Policy on operation also does not have an appropriate assessment of the capacity of lecturers and researchers, so there is a phenomenon of job transfer of lecturers with good research ability. Therefore, this question only received 3.12/5 points, which is the lowest level of the 3 questions. Other questions, especially administrative issues, received a high rating, up to 4.27/5 points, because they are often not related to teaching, and can be outsourced.
Financial autonomy
Participating in the exercise of autonomy according to NQ77/NQ-CP dated October 24, 2014, public universities have the right to decide the average tuition fee of the mass program but not exceed the tuition fee ceiling set by the State and recurrent expenditures from the State budget on average for each public student in the whole country.
Accordingly, public universities have the right to decide on specific tuition rates for each discipline, training program according to learners' needs and training quality, and to decide on tuition fees for advanced and high quality training programs and specific programs;
to publicize tuition rates for learners before enrolment along with conditions to ensure training quality in the 2014-2017 period such as: facilities, teaching staff, output standards and services which are included in the tuition fees that learners are entitled to. The ceiling of tuition fees for training systems are following: Master's degree is 1.5 times; Doctorate degree is 2.5 times; non-formal training systems are 1.5 times higher than the average tuition fee of the regular university training system of the mass program (Table 4).
Table 4: Average monthly tuition fees of learners according to
mass training programs at various types of public higher education institutions The average tuition fee of the school's mass formal training
programs that have not yet participated in the autonomy (thousand VND/month/student)
610- 1070
810- 1300
810- 1300
Average tuition fee of the school's mass regular training programs participating in the autonomous pilot (thousand
VND/month/student)
1750- 4400
1850- 4600
2050- 5050
Source: Mai (2019).
In general, most of the revenue of higher education institutions in Vietnam today comes from tuition fees (students' contributions). In which, the schools participating in the autonomous pilot will not receive training funding from the State budget, while the schools that have not participated in autonomy will have a part of the training funding of learners supported by the state. Schools participating in the autonomy pilot are still receiving budget investment until the projects and programs that support the state for schools in the previous period end. While in addition to revenue from tuition fees, higher education institutions that have not yet participated in the university autonomy pilot are supported by the state budget to ensure investment and development expenditures of the university. The revenues from services or science and technology are still very modest whether the school is participating or not participating in the autonomy pilot.
Table 5: financial autonomy in universities
Questions Means
The degree of autonomy in budget allocation allocated by the state 3.62
The degree of autonomy in the distribution of residual income of the school
3.87
The degree of autonomy in accessing credit of the school 2.65 The degree of autonomy in using public property for business of the school 2.77 Degree of autonomy in determining tuition fees for training programs 4.15
Note: 1 - completely absent, 2 - low, 3 - average, 4 – high, and 5 - very high.
Source: Authors’ reseach.
Among the questions about financial autonomy, it can be seen that the problem encountered by most (public) universities is that they are not fully autonomous or not yet able to access credit, and then using public property for business of the school. These schools are usually quite specific schools (pedagogical, or not very famous, or in provinces rather than central cities). Therefore, the interview results show that although schools have achieved a
certain degree of autonomy in tuition fees (to some extent), they still rely on the state budget.
The situation of self-generating is still not much. This is a hot issue right now.
Human resources autonomy
Human resources of universities are often recruited by the schools themselves. The governing bodies do not intervene and this problem. However, respondents said that at this time, because many schools are not financially self-sufficient, they cannot be autonomous in having a mechanism for recruiting highly qualified people with good international publication ability (The average score is 3.15/5 points). And because of that, the appointment and promotion are also difficult (the score is 3.67/5 points) (see Table 6). Other self-control issues are relatively high, above 4 points. The reason is that most of the respondents believe that the officers are not directly involved in the training process, so recruitment is quite easy. This is also the question with the highest score among the questions.
Table 6: Survey response results on human resource autonomy in universities
Questions Means
The degree of autonomy in recruiting lecturers 3.15
The degree of autonomy in recruiting officers 4.65
The degree of autonomy in reward and promotion with lecturers 4.12 The degree of autonomy in salary payment and income of lecturers 3.67
Note: 1 - completely absent, 2 - low, 3 - average, 4 – high, and 5 - very high.
Source: Authors’ reseach.
Academic autonomy
In order to develop in the context of integration and especially requirements of recruitment in the labor market, higher education institutions, whether participating in the autonomy pilot or not participating in the autonomy pilot, all strive to build, develop the suitable training programs to the HR needs of the labor market. The number of majors/programs in universities is therefore constantly increasing over the years at most of the public higher education institutions, whether affiliated to the ministry, or to the government, to the central government or to local governments, whether it is a single major or a multidisciplinary school. In addition to developing training programs in Vietnamese, higher education institutions have cooperation with foreign partners in implementing joint training programs in various forms. That is the affiliate program with fully trained in Vietnam; or with a haft-time in Vietnam, a haft-time abroad. Therefore, the degrees awarded to learners are also very diverse, depending on the signing and training funding built up during the program's formation (Table 7).
Table 7: Growth of post-graduate training in some higher education institutions in Vietnam
No Higher education institution
Number of majors/undergraduate training programs over the years
2016 2017 2018 2019
1 National Economics University 25 26 39 46
2 University of Commerce 15 17 24 26
3 Hanoi University of Science and Technology
35 34 53 53
4 Thai Nguyen university - - 134 141
5 Vinh university 42 49 51 54
6 Agricultural Academy - - 43 44
7 Hanoi Medical University 10 11 10 10
8 National University of Civil Engineering
19 19 18 23
Source: Mai (2019).
So, academic autonomy allows schools to be autonomous in terms of training programs and enrollment advice. Most of the questions agreed that universities have a high degree of autonomy, but because of limited funding, it is difficult to recruit personnel, then, it is difficult to develop new fields. This are often difficult to wait for major universities to develop to follow. Table 8 shows that the answers are all above 4, but also shows that one of the weaknesses is that the school has an enrollment plan, but has not given an idea of how to enroll students or develop the program.
Table 8: Survey response results on academic autonomy in universities
Questions Means
The degree of autonomy in the number of enrollments 4.28 The degree of autonomy in having the school's own enrollment plan 4.16
Degree of autonomy in opening new programs 4.23
The degree of autonomy in developing training programs 4.31 Note: 1 - completely absent, 2 - low, 3 - average, 4 – high, and 5 - very high.
Source: Authors’ reseach.